Energy-efficient medical equipment can save energy costs by reducing both the amount of energy required to power the device and cooling costs associated with heat generation. Consequently, there is nearly universal demand for equipment that requires less energy use. Manufacturers are responding by looking for ways to reduce energy use of their equipment with a focus on standby or sleep modes, intermittent operating cycles and reduced plug load.

Join this first (of a two-part) session to learn about the interest of health care systems to reduce the energy load from medical imaging equipment, national and international case studies, and the recent clinical interest to better identify efficient imaging equipment. Join Part 2 of this session to participate in a networking session between manufacturers, purchasers and the efficiency community.

In order to build a culture of safety, one must understand the definition of workplace violence in a health care environment. We will examine the definition of, and the direct and indirect costs associated with, workplace violence in health care. We will discuss ways to gather data, calculate costs and effectively present data. Finally, we will discuss leading practice action plans, technology and regulatory standards designed to mitigate the violence.

This will be a debate-style session in which experts will discuss potential conflicts between life safety requirements and infection prevention efforts. The discussion will provide insights into how to leverage these efforts, both of which are vital for providing a safe and healing physical environment that protects patients, staff and visitors to from hazards within health care settings.

A lesson in collaborative relationships between a hospital, a design firm and the university that came together to establish the right “why.” Constrained staff resources are not uncommon to health care facilities, especially during the COVID pandemic. By leveraging relationships and resources with industry and academia, a health care facility was able to establish which questions were significant enough to create metrics that would impact design. The goal of this renovation was to include innovative care and design concepts to redefine the standard of care for pediatric behavioral health. This research focused on targeted goals associated with key innovations to generate baseline and post-occupancy metrics associated with staff, patients and family outcomes to provide evidence-based design recommendations for future facilities. These metrics could not have been established without the assistance from a research partnership.

What happens when your infection prevention leader calls and informs engineering/plant services they’re investigating an health care-associated infection (HAI) or surgical site infection (SSI) They’re quick to check these four boxes before saying, “We’re good!”

Temp/humidity
Correct pressurization
Proper exchanges
Filter changed per preventitive maintenace (PM) schedule
Yet despite the documentation, clinical staff are rarely convinced that a room’s heat and/or humidity were not significant factors during a surgical case.

In one of our hospitals in Nashville, Tenn., we weren’t satisfied with just checking boxes. We wanted to qualify and visualize our airflow in our operating rooms (ORs), and we did it using a simple but data-powerful device. In the last year we have used this data and effectively learned what is or is not causing pathogens in our airflow and infections to our patients.

The digital twin provides the flexible building blocks for you or your AEC partners to create data-rich digital twins that mirror the built environment they represent. At handover, you receive both a physical structure and a digital replica that accelerates your operational readiness, unlocks the potential for gaining valuable insights and gives you more control of your built asset.

As the owner of a built asset, developing a digital twin is easier with input from both your capital project team and facility management team from the start. You can specify to your AEC partners what information you require within the digital asset to achieve your operational objectives. This means you can proactively plan for how your facility will be maintained and managed, setting you up for greater operational efficiency and insight.

Traditional ways of working in silos have led to capital project teams commissioning built assets without consulting the facility management teams that will be responsible for operating the facility. The digital twin presents new opportunities for planning teams and operations teams to be on the same page, providing a digital twin deliverable that contains everything the facility management team needs to optimize operational efficiency.

Confronting climate change is a crucial issue for hospitals and health care facilities. Ambitious goals and benchmarks are being rapidly adopted by organizations worldwide. Challenging state and municipal regulations pertaining to energy and emissions are evolving and rolling out almost daily. This session will review the dynamic energy and emissions landscape, discussing the implications for your facility and walking through tactics to thrive in the face of these steep, critical challenges.

As living, breathing buildings, there are always infrastructure changes taking place in health care facilities. Addressing electrical safety as a one-off each time a project is carried out is cumbersome and, in the best cases, adds cost and complexity. In the worst instances, it can lead to injury, substantial downtime and regulatory penalties.

This session offers perspectives from a design professional, owner and manufacturer and will provide attendees with an electrical safety roadmap from pre-design through installation and post-installation and address compliance with applicable codes and standards. Further, it will discuss how to build a culture focused on safety that enables a more effective and cost-efficient approach for health care facilities.

This session will present a strategy that can be implemented to enhance electrical safety in the health care environment. We’ll walk through the electrical safety roadmap and review the key strategies to make smart decisions and stay compliant with applicable codes and standards.

Energy storage systems are a promising technology that is being used more and more around the world to solve a wide array of electrical energy-related problems. It is only a matter of time before we see energy storage systems integrated into health care facilities everywhere. This presentation will talk about what an energy storage system is as well as its applications, hazards, failure modes and related codes and standards.

The transition from new construction to facilities operations is often overlooked or not fully understood. An effective transition involves all stakeholders (from the design team to facility personnel) and should include:

1. Having members from facility operations as part of the commissioning team to help in their understanding of systems, equipment and operations.
2. Working with the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) administrator to asset-tag all inventory devices for uploading and importing.
3. Pulling maintenance timeframes and procedures from all equipment manuals to build out the CMMS system.
4. Performing a walk-through with the facility operations technicians who will be servicing the space prior to final transition.