Health Care HVAC

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Due to the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program, Department of Defense facilities across the country were consolidated to improve efficiency and reduce operating costs.

HVAC systems provide comfort and quality air for patients, staff, and visitors in hospitals. Comfort is generally determined by temperature, humidity, and air speed.

The Royal University Hospital (RUH) provides acute-care services for the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan region, serving as the main trauma center for the entire region and housing many maternal and child, neurosurgery, and cardiovascular surgery services.

With a continuous pressure to decrease turnover time while also providing the medical staff with utmost flexibility, the design of the HVAC systems for today’s operating rooms requires not just special attention but also complex analyses.

Today’s operating rooms are inefficient and overcrowded, and the turnover between cases is often lengthy and variable.

Within a hospital facility, there is the environment health and safety (EH&S) department, medical equipment management department, custodial department, and O&M department, to mention just a few — each with their own infection control (IC) responsibilities.

This month’s Facility File is based on a project renovation of an 80,000-sq-ft existing commercial office building being renovated to an outpatient health care facility.

After reading my September column about using the heart as a guide for energy efficient HVAC design, a forward-thinking ES reader asked about using the respiratory system to think about air handling strategies.

One reliable way for energy managers and plant operators to reduce energy consumption is by installing insulation on steam lines.

A new Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study involving 196 cooling towers nationwide found that 84% contained Legionella DNA, indicating that the dangerous bacteria was present or had been at some point.