Abstract
It is necessary to characterise air-conditioning airflow in omanuscriprder to optimize hospital Indoor Environment Quality in high-performance operating theatres, and also reduce the risk of nosocomial infection due to pathogen contamination. The aim of this article is to study the prevalence of optimal healthy conditions from controlled air flow quality in hospital facilities, and to minimize energy consumption. To this purpose, the indoor air movement was modelled by Computational Fluid Dynamics technology. The optimal results showed that it is necessary to drive ultra-clean air ranging between 0.25 m/s and 0.40 m/s, values which are adequate to perform efficient sweeping and cleaning of the air near the patient, maintaining unidirectional air flow permanently as the air passes through the surgical field. These speeds must be taken into account as calculation parameters in new hospital facility projects, and as control parameters for the existing operating theatres.
Highlights
Healthcare-associated infections are among the most common and harmful causes of unintended harm to health care
We show the results for mesh consistency study and for air velocity profiles study over medical personnel and patients present in the room
Factors that can interrupt the unidirectionality of the flow are: low supply air velocity and thermal contour generated around equipment or people due to thermal radiation
Summary
Healthcare-associated infections are among the most common and harmful causes of unintended harm to health care. European Commission studies confirm that it is possible to reduce these adverse effects by 20% per year, as infection control methods are not optimized. 37,000 deaths annually are caused by nosocomial infections. That is why the European Parliament is developing a Legislative Project against hospital contagion [1]. In Spain, prevalence of patients with nosocomial infection, contracted during his or her stay in hospital, was 7.74% in 2017, about 25% of which was caused after underwent a surgical intervention [2]. Air-conditioning of healthcare buildings is one of the most complex installations that Hospital Engineering has to deal with [3]. Air-conditioning systems are an effective way to control infection in hospitals caused by airborne bioparticles
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