International Journal of Database Management Systems ( IJDMS ), Vol.3, No.3, August 2011 DOI: 10.5121/ijdms.2011.3306 69                Mohammed Assem 1 , Bassem K. Ouda 1 and Manal Abdel Wahed 1 1 Department of Systems and Biomedical Engineering, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt bestasem@yahoo.com, bkouda@k-space.org, manalaw2003@yahoo.com ABSTRACT The design and establishment of the operating theatre (OT) is not a simple architecture engineering work. This project needs a specialized planning and execution effort from all engineering specialists driven and coordinated by the needs, preferences and safety of the medical/surgical team. More than one reference in operating theatre design is available, but each reference is dedicated for the design of a special part of the project. This paper presents a complete comprehensive integrated paperless database application program called Operating Theatre Design Analyzer (OTDA). This application is used to ensure the optimal OT design referring to seven international standards and three accreditation programs integrated with each other throughout the recommendation report has been resulted. It helps the owners of healthcare facilities or those who are interested in this area to identify and solve the problems in the OT design. The program was introduced to many hospitals in different Arab countries for evaluation; the percentage of compliance with standard for each item in OTDA was recorded. The analysis of the results reflects a lack of infection control awareness and misunderstanding of the role of the clinical engineer in OT design and healthcare facilities design as whole KEYWORDS Evaluation of operating theater design, planning of operating theater, New trends in operating theater design 1. INTRODUCTION Creating something from nothing is an awesome task; it requires forethought, creativity, commitment, and enthusiasm. If this "something" is as large as a new operating theater or a renovated old one, it also requires planning, resources, education, and communication. The planning, design, and construction processes can be daunting if healthcare organization do not have the appropriate tools, personnel, and commitment for the task. Multidisciplinary collaborations must occur throughout all stages of the process, patients, staff, and the community should play an integral role [1]. The work of clinical engineers has a direct effect on health, safety and the environment. These public health domains are heavily guided by standards and regulations. Standards are documented agreements containing technical specifications or other precise criteria to be used consistently as rules, guidelines, or definitions of characteristics, to ensure that materials, products, processes, and services are fit for their purpose [2]. Service delivery in the healthcare sector is profoundly affected by the built infrastructure provided to support it [3]. A reliable, systematic framework to evaluate the infrastructure is a must. Internationally, some design evaluation toolkits specifically for healthcare facilities have been developed in an attempt to do just this. Achieving Excellence Design Evaluation Toolkit (AEDET Evolution) [4], [5] evaluates