Dear All,

We have a potential hospital outside the US which needs to be registered under LEED. The building will be a fully functioning hospital (including surgery rooms and ~400 inpatient beds).

I learned that LEED for HC 2009 is available for international projects.

My questions are:
1) are such projects obliged to go for HC, or they have the choice between NC & HC?
2) would you consider certifying under LEED HC easier than NC (given the type of building)? Or are there many complex additional requirements whereby the design team would need to do "a lot" to achieve an equivalent score under LEED NC?

Thanks!