Designing Healthcare Restrooms for the Pressures of Modern Care

In today’s hospitals, outpatient clinics, surgical centers, elder care communities, and other healthcare environments, restrooms are part of the care experience itself.

Restroom design decisions influence infection control, patient experience, sustainability, inclusivity, and maintenance costs—creating more pressure than ever to get these decisions right. Sloan’s new Healthcare Markets page brings these priorities together in one easy-to-explore resource, with solutions designed for patient rooms, public restrooms, clinical examination rooms, surgical areas, maternity rooms, and nurse stations. 

Here’s a closer look at the challenges Sloan can help you meet when creating your next healthcare facility’s restrooms.

Cleanliness and Infection Control

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) remain a serious concern, even as hospitals continue making progress. For example, acute care hospitals saw an 8% increase in abdominal hysterectomy surgical site infections in 2024 compared with 2023, even as most other HAI categories improved.¹

Restrooms and handwashing areas are critical spaces in infection-control efforts. Sloan solutions reduce touchpoints, support hand hygiene, and reduce the spread of germs in patient rooms, waiting areas, and other spaces. 

• Touch-free faucets and flushometers help reduce the spread of germs by eliminating these touchpoints.

• SloanTec^® Hydrophobic Glaze inhibits the growth of germs and bacteria in water closets and urinals.

Patient Experience and Perception

Would patients recommend your healthcare facility to friends and family? That’s the crux of the annual Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, which measures patients’ satisfaction with their experience.

Based on the most recent HCAHPS survey, cleanliness is still a weak point for many hospitals—only 74% of patients discharged between April 2024 and March 2025 said their hospital environment was “always” clean.² 

Sloan’s AER-DEC^® Integrated Sink System can help improve cleanliness ratings provided by patients. This integrated sink system combines faucet, soap dispenser, and HEPA-filtered hand dryer in one seamless unit, which helps keep water in the sink and floors dry. The result is a safer, cleaner environment for patients and hospital staff.

Sustainability and Water Savings

Sustainability increasingly affects how clinicians view their employers. A Commonwealth Fund survey found that four in five clinicians believe it is important for their organization to address climate change or reduce its environmental impact, and about 6 in 10 said a prospective employer’s climate policies and actions would influence where they applied for a job.³

This puts water-efficient restroom design squarely in the sustainability conversation—and Sloan offers an expansive portfolio of products and resources that can help you create more sustainable restrooms and facilities.

• Sloan high-efficiency flushometers and sensor faucets help save water with every use.

• DropSpot^™ Bottle Fillers and Water Coolers help clinicians and patients replace one-use plastic water bottles with reusable bottles.

• Sloan’s Environmental Product Declarations provide an objective, transparent report on how much a product’s composition impacts the environment across its entire life cycle.

Accessibility, Dignity, and Safety

Approximately 25% of U.S. adults have at least one disability.⁴ That makes accessibility a mainstream healthcare design requirement, because accessibility gaps can become care gaps. Adults with disabilities are almost twice as likely as adults without disabilities to report unmet healthcare needs because of accessibility problems at their doctor’s office or clinic.⁴ 

Because healthcare restroom design must support people with a wide range of mobility needs, Sloan offers accessible sink profiles that include two-height, open-front, and rounded sinks, as well as offset flushometer adapters that accommodate ADA grab bars without rerouting plumbing.

Maintenance and Operational Cost Pressure

The American Hospital Association reports that total hospital expenses grew 7.5% in 2025—more than twice the rate of hospital price growth—while supply costs increased 9.9%.⁵ In such an environment, healthcare facilities are under intense pressure to reduce costs, and even restroom design decisions have long-term operational implications.

Sloan’s technology can help reduce maintenance costs and conserve water. For example:

• The Sloan SC Argus^® Pro management system lets facilities keep restrooms operational with less downtime, while preventive maintenance saves maintenance crews time and effort.

• The Sloan ESD-360 Top-fill Soap Dispenser eliminates the hassle of going under the sink deck to refill reservoirs, and the refill bottle locks into place for hands-free filling without overflow or waste.

• Sensor-operated faucets, soap dispensers, and flushometers help ensure that water is not left running and toilets are always flushed.

Sloan’s new Healthcare Markets page has even more ideas to make your next restroom project hygienic, sustainable, and cost-efficient. For more ideas and solutions about transforming your next restroom project, contact Sloan! 

1 — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Current HAI Progress Report,” January 2026
2 — HCAHPS, “January 2026 Public Report”
3 — The Commonwealth Fund, “U.S. Health Care Workers Want Their Employers to Address Climate Change,” January 2024
4 — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Modernizing Health Care to Improve Physical Accessibility,” March 2023
5 — American Hospital Association, “Costs of Caring,” March 2026