New green technology links OR schedulers with HVAC systems
MILWAUKEE – If you're a hospital CIO, you're probably spending much of your time thinking about EHRs and CPOE and HIE. But there are other systems that are also important – such as HVAC.
Johnson Controls and Omaha, Neb.-base engineering firm HDR have partnered on a green technology for hospital surgical suites that (at the risk of sounding like alphabet soup) could provide a quick ROI.
The new Healthcare Environment Optimization (HEO) system integrates a hospital's building automation system with surgery scheduling to optimize air exchange rates and energy use – leading to projected annual savings of up to $10,000 in each operating room, officials say.
An operating room's heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems typically use a substantial amount of energy to ventilate and eliminate airborne contaminants.
"Typically, a high volume of air is being moved through the operating room around-the-clock, even when the room is vacant," said Richard Smith, director, healthcare, Johnson Controls. "This wastes energy and valuable dollars, but with Healthcare Environment Optimization, we can now control the air flow in an efficient and safe manner."
HEO routes data from surgery scheduling to the building automation system and determines which of the two HVAC system modes should be used: surgery or setback.
When the system is in surgery mode, the HVAC system achieves a minimum number of air changes every hour per industry or local authority standards. In setback mode, most regulatory entities state that air changes may be reduced to 25 percent of suggested values when the operating room is unoccupied. That helps hospitals "reduce energy usage and operational costs based on real-time surgical schedules, which we all know can change on a rapid basis," said Smith.
Surgical rooms demand highly controlled humidity and temperature levels. In order to maintain them, most hospitals simply run their HVAC systems "full-out, like they're occupied, all day and all night," says Dale Kondik development leader at Johnson Controls Healthcare Solutions. "All we're changing is the volume of air that flows through the room. When surgeons go in to use the space, humidity, temperature, and differential pressure between the OR and the adjacent space are all maintained.
The savings can be significant and immediate. "Rather than 20 air changes or more, we can drop that significantly," says Kondik. "As we pull in less outdoor air, in the summertime there's less humidity, less temperature drop when we have to pull 105 degree air in Phoenix down to 55. There's air conditioning savings, heating savings, and humidity savings."
HEO provides the ability to track air exchange rates and temperatures for record-keeping, a user interface display that gives surgical and facility staff control of the room conditions, real-time alarms that allow occupants to immediately address HVAC system problems, and the ability to earn credits toward LEED and Energy Star certifications.
Union Hospital, in Terre Haute, Ind., is beta testing HEO at its new five-story, 500,000-square-foot facility, which features a surgical suite composed of 10 operating rooms. The hospital is installing the new Healthcare Environment Optimization solution in conjunction with Innovative Workflow Technologies, its system integrator. The surgical scheduling system will integrate with the Metasys building management system.
"The surgical environment is especially sensitive and corners can never be cut," said Dave Snapp, facilities director, Union Hospital. "Through Healthcare Environment Optimization, we expect to reduce our energy use and operational costs, but more importantly, we plan to do so while maintaining an uncompromising surgical environment for our patients and clinical staff."
For more on this topic: bit.ly/topic-bi
