A Look at the Speed and Safety that Double-Acting Doors Provide in Regular and Emergency Situations
Double-acting doors are used in buildings and institutions to provide fast and safe movement throughout. Speed and accessibility are crucial in emergency situations, especially when people’s health and lives are at risk. Some institutions need double-acting doors to enhance the safety of their vulnerable occupants. These buildings will utilize double-acting doors both for mobility throughout and access to rooms, such as bathrooms. With the ease of movement, double-acting doors work to make buildings safer for everyone.
How Double-Acting Doors Improve Safety
Double-acting doors open in both directions and can be manual or automatic. These doors are available as double or single doors. Double doors provide a larger doorway for wide hallways and stairwells to increase movement for large volumes of foot traffic. These larger doors also allow large objects to pass through, such as staff with gurneys carrying patients throughout hospitals.
Movement
Institutions, such as hospitals, schools, and correctional facilities, use double-action doors for fast, easy, and safe movement. Speed and safety are crucial in emergency situations and high-traffic buildings with many occupants. Whether people are going in or coming out, double-acting doors can open in both directions for swift movement through rooms, hallways, and stairwells. This movement saves time and potentially many lives in emergency situations.
For hospital emergencies, double-acting doors allow staff to easily move patients through corridors to get to the necessary area—i.e. the operation room. This speed and mobility is absolutely crucial to help save patients’ lives. In the event of an emergency situation such as a fire, these doors allow for everyone to get out quickly, safely, and in an orderly manner. Institutions with large populations and security risks—such as correctional facilities—need orderly and efficient movement for the safety of everyone inside.
Accessibility
Hospitals and other institutions, such as long-term healthcare facilities, use single double-acting doors for bathrooms in case a patient has an emergency and is unable to get out of the room. Staff or visitors can also open these safety doors from the other side to provide assistance to the person in distress. This is especially useful if the person has fallen and is blocking their side of the door. Single double-acting doors can also help staff reach occupants in rooms of correctional facilities who are at risk of injury.
Buildings with large populations require safety doors for the ease of movement throughout and during emergencies. Double-acting doors are especially important for vulnerable populations for both fast, orderly movement and accessibility in emergency situations. The ease of mobility and access with the help of these doors makes daily movement throughout buildings more efficient and also saves lives.