ER One is a prototype hospital envisioned for the Washington D.C. area. The hospital is an all-scenarios facility, designed to handle, for example, a huge influx of contaminated patients from a terrorist attack. The emergency room can accommodate 220 patients in 24 hours, a figure that can easily double in emergency situations. ER One is capable of managing chemical, biological, explosive, and radiological catastrophes.
Additionally, ER One is a research facility, not just for doing research in the traditional hospital research sense, but as a prototype hospital, in order to research the very design of hospitals.
Design elements include mass decontamination, surge capacity, and preparedness for other emergencies such as an outbreak of bird flu. The emergency room (ER) has added a lab located in the emergency department to expedite blood tests, ten large examination rooms that will hold three patients each, negative pressure capability to prevent potentially contagious air from escaping an examination room, and sterilization using vaporized hydrogen peroxide.
Read more about this topic: Washington Hospital Center