Performance-Based Design for Healthcare Facilities

Healthcare buildings are one of the most critical facilities in any country for their important roles just after an earthquake. In this context, working on the resistance of healthcare facilities against earthquake is of great importance for a probable future earthquake. However, in today's world, in either private or governmental agencies, buildings earthquake resistant design is not within the primary criteria such as social facilities and architectural details need for the residents. While the structural system in any building are often considered the most important in the performance, it represent approximately only 20% of the total building cost. Consequently, structural engineers should look the seismic performance in an extensive context, looking at all the systems of the building than just the damage to structural items and life-safety. So to response to this issue, a next generation of seismic performance-based design methodology and tools have been outlined in the FEMAP58 documents to allow engineers to query out the seismic performance of an entire building in terms of future life loss, facility repair cost and repair time and that we summarized and applied in this chapter for a six (6) story special moment frame healthcare building.