Many existing chilled water plants are designed using primary-secondary pumping where one set of pumps circulates water at the chilled water plant and then another set of pumps circulates water to the building or buildings. This is common in larger buildings or campuses where the many spaces or buildings are served by one system, and allows … Read more
Barton Associates recently retro-commissioned an air handler for a hospital client. The retro-commissioning process typically starts with a review of the Building Automation System (BAS). A graphic screen shot from the subject air handler is shown above. There is a lot of information on this screen, but focus on the basic information circled in red … Read more
Traditional air conditioning typically conditions an entire room or space, such as in an office space or classroom. Air is supplied from the ceiling and distributed throughout the space. This is a cost effective method but is not well suited for some applications due to the limitations in efficiency in cooling the entire space including … Read more
For many years the conventional operating room ceiling consisted of a gypsum board or plaster ceiling with openings framed out for lights and diffusers. Openings would be field cut in the gypsum board for overhead surgical light supports, diffusers, general lighting and medical gas columns. With the advent of hybrid operating rooms, the construction of … Read more
Controllability is an important aspect of design for lighting in healthcare facilities. The healthcare industry is seeing an escalation in demand for lighting designs that create calming environments and offer flexible lighting options to increase patient comfort. To meet the demands of the industry, lighting designs often include complex controls and specialty lighting fixtures to address … Read more
Age and Condition When considering improvements to your Hemodialysis unit, you may want to modernize furniture, finishes, lighting and equipment in order to improve the patient environment. While planning the upgrade you will also need to consider the age and condition of the water treatment system that provides either distilled or reverse osmosis water to the … Read more
Successful outcomes from surgical procedures in a hospital rely, in part, on the ability of the central sterile processing suite to provide equipment and materials in an efficient, reliable, and sterile manner. Similarly, the central sterile processing suite relies on the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems serving the area to be reliable and to meet all … Read more
Fueled by the adoption of the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare industry is undergoing a shift from inpatient to an outpatient based model of care. The emergence of “retail healthcare” facilities across the country is evidence of this shift in patient care delivery. This shift, along with growing competition in the market place, has created … Read more
With constantly increasing capabilities of IP-based communications, integration of communications systems in building projects is a major topic of discussion today. Whether it’s as simple as controlling lights and room temperature by using occupancy sensors in a room or as extensive as collecting patient medical information throughout a medical facility into a common database or coordinating … Read more
Regardless if you are a healthcare facility, school or university or a consulting engineering firm, we are all looking for ways to reduce cost, increase quality and drive employee engagement. Lean concepts and principles have long been a part of industry but how can they be applied in a service industry? Some of these principles … Read more
One of the most important times in a project’s lifecycle is the concept design phase. During this phase, the clinical program and project space requirements are defined. One item that is often overlooked during this phase is the mechanical and electrical system requirements. While they may seem insignificant in terms of clinical process, mechanical, electrical … Read more
The Joint Commission is increasingly placing emphasis that hospital facilities meet the requirements of The Joint Commission Standard EC.02.05.01, specifically the control of airborne contaminants through proper air pressurization of critical spaces. The Joint Commission reports that 47% of all hospitals in 2013 and 53% of all hospitals in 2014 have received non-compliance scores for … Read more
The 2014 Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospitals and Outpatient Facilities (published by The Facility Guidelines Institute) is on the street. Starting in December, the Pennsylvania Department of Health Division of Safety Inspection and Division of Acute and Ambulatory Care will be referencing this edition for all project plan and occupancy approvals. The 2014 … Read more
A recent survey of 35 senior living communities in the Mid-Atlantic region found energy usage varied between 50,000 and 160,000 Btu per square foot per year of total energy usage. Total annual energy costs per square foot ranged from a high of $2.83 to a low of $0.88. Energy is one of the most significant … Read more
The performance of a central utility plant in a healthcare facility is critical to the delivery of safe patient care. There are many important aspects to consider when replacing equipment, upgrading components, or building a new central utility plant. An unplanned outage or equipment failure can result in the loss of ability to treat patients … Read more
Healthcare providers continue to move more and more patient care services away from the main hospital into medical office buildings. Medical office buildings that were once used mainly for family practice office visits and check-ups have been retrofitted to house ambulatory surgical centers, chemotherapy infusion suites, kidney dialysis, diagnostic radiology, and cancer treatment modalities such … Read more
The United States Pharmacopeial Convention published a revised edition of their document “A Guide for the Compounding Practitioner USP on Compounding,” in 2013. The document has many chapters and is a guide for those practicing in the pharmacy and compounding field. One chapter, titled USP 797 Pharmaceutical Compounding-Sterile Preparations defines minimum practice and quality standards … Read more
Section 4.1 of NFPA 99, 2012 Edition, provides a good starting point for assessing risk in building systems. This Section requires that each building system in a healthcare facility be evaluated and assigned a category based on the consequences of that system failing to operate. The categories are: Category Consequence of Failure 1 Major injury or death … Read more
In today’s healthcare market, many surgical procedures have moved from the hospital setting to an outpatient setting. Stand-alone outpatient surgery centers allow for same-day surgeries to be more convenient and less expensive for patients and healthcare providers. From the outside, an outpatient surgery center may look like a standard medical office building (MOB) but, below … Read more
Renovating or expanding an emergency department can be one of the most challenging projects that a hospital faces. Unless you have the ability to construct a completely new, replacement emergency department, the project will require a phased implementation to ensure that continuous care is available to the hospital’s emergency patients. The mechanical and electrical system … Read more
