What Critical Environment Products Do Healthcare Facilities Use?
Effective Procedures, Treatment, and Healing All Require Critical Environment Solutions
Healthcare facilities like hospitals, surgical centers, and treatment wards are dynamic environments that require different products for different needs. No two patients are the same, and therefore, neither are their specific diagnoses, needs, outcomes, and products needed.
However, there are ways to standardize care in healthcare facilities, so that all patients receive the same exceptional services. Healthcare facilities own certain products can help achieve this standardization. One of those standardizations is indoor air quality (IAQ). To protect patients while ensuring the best possible outcomes, healthcare facilities follow industry-specific guidelines for air filtration and distribution.
Healthcare facilities accomplish this goal by utilizing specific custom air distribution and filtration systems and products. Find out which clean room and critical environment technologies are most common in healthcare, and also how to choose a critical environment manufacturing facility to commission these important items.
Fan Filter Units Are the Norm For Healthcare Facilities
A fan filter unit (FFU) is a self-contained unit for air filtration. It includes a motorized fan and a filter to ensure that air is clean and distributed to a specific location that requires excellent airflow and IAQ.
Designers can efficiently install high-quality fan filter units in various parts of a room—including directly over a surgical table—thanks to their modular design. Fan filter units are also scalable, as some environments require multiple fan filter units to meet specific air quality metrics.
Healthcare facilities that follow the American Society for Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 170, Ventilation of Health Care Facilities, employ fan filter units in various parts of their buildings to meet these requirements.
Healthcare environments that depend on fan filter units include:
- Operating rooms
- Intensive care units (ICUs) and neonatal intensive care units (NICUs)
- Pharmaceutical compounding rooms
- Isolation rooms
- Chemotherapy treatment wards
Structural Ceiling Systems Are Critical Environment Essentials
Installers place a structural ceiling system—a low-plenum, all-in-one solution—above rooms that require filtered air directed to a specific location within the room. Operating rooms depend on structural ceiling systems to protect against infections while doctors and nurses perform surgical procedures.
The highest quality ceiling systems from a leading critical environment manufacturing facility are composed of multiple elements, including fan filter units, diffusers to direct airflow, and additional accessories, such as lighting and space for equipment mounting. The comprehensive nature of these critical environment solutions frees up floor space while allowing medical professionals to focus on their work without disruption.
An interactive, room-side touchscreen controls structural ceiling systems for operating room and surgical theaters, much like it does for a cleanroom monitoring system.
Two Additional Critical Environment Solutions In Healthcare
The diffusers and filters that are used in fan filter units and structural ceiling systems are just as essential as the aforementioned larger systems. Without them, air can’t be filtered or distributed where it needs to go.
- Diffusers, which direct airflow, are selected based on the necessary direction and volume of air your environment demands. For example, some diffusers harness the power of laminar flow, a physical phenomenon that delivers “pistons” of air in regular paths. When accompanied by an FFU to blow and filter the air, diffusers allow facility engineers to distribute air directly where they need it.
- HEPA and ULPA filters block infectious particles from entering a critical environment. These solutions capture particles in the filters’ woven fibers. Although HEPA filters are highly effective at protecting against most unwanted particles like certain viruses, bacteria, fungi, and more, ULPA filters can protect a healthcare facility from even smaller particles, such as the COVID-19 virus. However, many facilities rely on HEPA filters, as viruses travel in clumps, making them larger and less likely to breach the filter barrier.
Find an Experienced Critical Environment Manufacturing Facility
Along with fan filter units and structural ceiling systems, a full portfolio of critical environment solutions are available to enhance your healthcare facility.
The next step in the journey toward acquiring critical environment solutions is to find a manufacturer that offers a comprehensive, dedicated partnership and the highest-quality systems and products for healthcare.
An excellent partner has significant industry knowledge, specific experience with the solutions you require, and a familiarity with how their products integrate with other critical environment products, such as cleanroom monitoring systems.
A healthcare facility’s mission is only as successful as the care, safety, protection, and services it provides. Critical environment solutions play a central role in a facility’s ability to achieve this purpose. Therefore, how you choose your partner ultimately affects the most important stakeholder of all: patients in need of care.