2026 FGI Code for Planning and Design of Hospitals

The 2026 FGI Code for Planning and Design of Hospitals establishes the minimum requirements for the planning, design, and construction of a wide range of hospital facilities, including general hospitals, children’s hospitals, critical access, rural emergency, and other small hospitals, behavioral and mental health hospitals, rehabilitation hospitals, and mobile units.

New for the 2026 edition, the FGI Codes contain only minimum requirements intended for adoption and enforcement. Explanatory material, advisory information, and best practices have been removed from the FGI Hospital Code are available separately in the digital-only 2026 FGI Handbook for Planning and Design of Hospitals. This new structure clearly distinguishes enforceable requirements from supplemental guidance.

The 2026 FGI Hospital Code incorporates significant revisions that reflect changes in health care delivery, facility operations, and building systems. Updates to general project requirements improve the organization of provisions related to project planning, renovations, phased construction, and emergency access. Additional revisions address patient lift systems, seclusion rooms, cabinetry and casework, plumbing systems, and electrical, medical gas, and nurse call requirements.

New and expanded minimum requirements address incident command centers, discharged patient waiting lounges, point-of-care testing areas, medical psychiatry patient care units, staff personal alarm systems in behavioral and mental health settings, and updated provisions for neonatal intensive care units, rehabilitation hospitals, rural emergency hospitals, and mobile units.

The 2026 FGI Hospital Code also incorporates the complete 2025 edition of ANSI/ASHRAE/ASHE Standard 170, establishing the minimum ventilation requirements for health care facilities within a single adoptable resource.