Designing Safety Hospital Environment by Symbolic Information Signs

T. C. Kao

Department of Industrial Engineering and Management
Cheng Shiu University



ABSTRACT

Safety management in hospital environment usually includes departmental layout and facilities planning. Designing information signs is a critical task for creating a friendly and safety environment. Very few hospitals used symbols to represent the various facilities in their own hospitals in Taiwan. This paper reports on an ongoing project aimed at evaluating and designing symbolic information signs for hospital environment. In this study, first, a set of hospital graphic symbols of a certain symbol-design company was selected. Then, a matching test was conducted to obtain the correct matching rates and to build the original and revised confusion matrix. Finally, improvements were further made by the effectiveness ratings for alternative pictographs. For those poor-comprehended symbols, redesign process will be implemented to enhance comprehensibility.

Keywords: Safety hospital environment; Hospital symbol design; Graphic symbols; Symbolic information signs