What Is Temporary Hospital Ventilation, Why’s It So Important, And How Can Temporary Installations Improve Productivity.
Hospital ventilation essentially provides the same simple function as other applications- to exchange, replace and circulate air around a space. The main differences being in the regulations that apply to their design, installation and operation.
Clearly, ventilation plays a critical role in the health care sector. Here we look into the requirements and solutions for supplying temporary ventilation systems into hospitals.
Proper ventilation systems in hospitals are used to control harmful contaminants, such as airborne viruses, bacteria, and pollutants which can be very detrimental to patients, staff and visitors alike. Airborne Pathogens if left un-controlled can lead to the spread of infections and diseases.
The Health Technical Memorandum 03-01 Specialised ventilation for healthcare premises was introduced in 1983 and has since been updated several times to the current HTM 03-01 (2021) which supersedes all before.
The memorandum gives comprehensive advice and guidance on the design, installation and operation of specialised building and engineering technology in the healthcare environment.
The guidance is aimed at specifiers, designers, suppliers, installers, as well as, the day to day estates and facilities/ healthcare management who operate the systems.
The original document is too weighty to go into great detail here, so we are going to go to the main take-aways in relation to temporary solutions that will play a crucial role in supporting these services.
The over-riding principle of the new guidance is to put efficiency front and foremost. Energy consumption of ventilation systems should be minimised by specifying solutions with the lowest lifecycle environmental cost.
In essence, the objective of energy-saving strategies is to provide the required ventilation service using the minimum energy. “Switching off” and “setting back” strategies feature strongly as practical solutions for energy saving without compromising performance.
Other key take-aways include, recommending the use of either of two means of delivering ventilation, particularly in operating theatres: radial convergence or laminar flow, providing at least 22 air changes/hr at a velocity of between 0.2 and 0.3m/3.
Below we can see a typical laminar flow diagram. Air is supplied directly above the operating table and washes over the area.
Temporary hospital ventilation is essentially equipment and systems that are supplied on a short term basis and as such are considered non-permanent.
With a focus on fast simple delivery, suppliers such as ACR Ltd have developed portable units that can be supplied from stock for reactive situations, including disaster recovery, and even longer planned projects.
5 key advantages of temporary hospital ventilation systems include;
Climate Rentals supplies air handling plant that is suitable for use in the health environment. These include portable one box DX heating and cooling AHU’s. Featuring heat- pump technology, the newest controls and hepa filtration.
Such an AHU can be seen below. These units will heat and cool as required, whilst monitoring air quality and delivering hepa filtered air.
For more information about our temporary hospital ventilation systems please click here.
Firstly, we would recommend that you collect information regarding your requirements ie. the function of the area, volumetric capacity, and on-site locations for the temporary equipment.
Once you have some basic information drop us a line by phone or using the contact forms here. We will come straight back to you with initial thoughts.
Generally, we follow this up with a site visit for the teams to meet, discuss/ observe the requirements in more detail, making any suggestions that stem from these observations.
This will be followed by a detailed proposal for the design, installation and rental of the equipment. Any details and adjustments to the design will be made as required. Once resolved and all parties are happy we can move to the order and delivery phase.
Obviously, the above is a simplification of the process. We understand that requirements and site conditions may change at any time and have much experience in smoothing these problems into a practical and deliverable package.
Please contact Climate Rentals us if you would like a consultation regarding your requirements.
This was a really interesting project from start to finish. In a nutshell, this project involved bringing mothballed day surgeries back into operation. Day surgeries are as the name suggests smaller/simpler operations that do not involve an overnight stay
