Nortec Humidity will gather several experts to share the newest techniques and advancements in health care, engineering, operations, and indoor air quality at the 2018 Healthcare Symposium.

The event will be held on May 10, 2018 at the Joseph Martin Harvard Medical Conference Center in Boston, and preceded by a reception and keynote on the evening of May 9 at the Harvard Club Boston.

Dr. Stephanie Taylor, a fellow of Harvard Medical School and columnist for ES, will once again lend her medical knowledge by leading the 2018 panel. Steven Friedman, director of facilities engineering for the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, will also be a speaker this year. Attendees will learn the newest techniques of reducing operational costs, improving productivity, and saving lives through optimum indoor air quality and infectious disease management in the following areas:

• The use of humidity control to ensure optimum patient health

• Surface disinfection strategies

• Environmental energy efficient and cost-effectiveness

• Airborne infectious disease management

• Managing the role of indoor air hydration in infectious disease

“It’s no secret that hospitals are causing harm to patients and wasting money on avoidable infectious health events. Preventable avoidable patient events account for 440,000 deaths — roughly one-sixth of all deaths that occur in the United States each year,” said Taylor.  “It is estimated that in the U.S. alone, over 400,000 premature patient deaths every year could have been prevented through proper indoor air quality and infectious disease prevention strategies.”

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, hospitals in the United States are even more dangerous than the general public anticipates. There are double the number of health-care-associated infections then those linked to car accidents — 80,000 deaths compared to 34,000. Proper safeguards and optimum IAQ helps to reduce healthcare-associated infections and prevent patient deaths. Through upgrades made to engineering and therefore air quality, medical facilities such as hospitals can improve clinical outcomes and encourage greater patient protection while lowering operating costs and risks of hospital-borne infections.

For more information, visit www.healthcaresymposium.org.