As medical professionals continuously work and do their best to treat patients, the facility’s HVAC systems constantly work too to provide clean, contaminant-free indoor air. A hospital or any other medical institution must have negative pressure to stop the infection from transferring from one place to another and from one person to another.
What is a Negative Pressure Room?
Negative pressure rooms, commonly referred to as isolation rooms, are created to keep airborne microbes in the room from spreading to halls and corridors. Patients with infectious airborne diseases are frequently isolated using them as a technique to manage the infection. These rooms protect patients who are contagious away from other patients, guests, and front-line staff.
Because of the difference in air pressure between inside and outside the room, these spaces are known as negative pressure rooms. When a negative pressure room’s door is opened, clean, filtered air enters the space while any potentially hazardous materials and/or damaging particles are drawn out of the space by exhaust systems. Before being discharged outside and away from the building, the air is cleaned by filters integrated into these systems.
Importance of a Negative Pressure Room
Lower air pressure enables outside air to enter a regulated environment, which is the science underlying these rooms. It prevents contaminated air particles from leaving the area by capturing them. The majority of hospitals use these techniques to maintain the standards of negative pressure rooms:
- Sealed ceilings, walls, floors, and windows
- Doors with self-closing technology and sufficient sealing
- HEPA filters to trap and regulate pollutants in the air
- The proper fans, dampers, and ductwork to transport air out of the building
- Air pressure control and monitoring system
- Supply and exhaust rates
These and other methods are employed by hospitals to prevent the spread of contagious pathogens across their facilities. The following places are designated as negative pressure zones by most hospitals:
- Bathrooms
- Airborne Infection Isolation Rooms (AIIRs)
- Triage areas (to include waiting rooms as well)
- Decontamination rooms
- Darkrooms
- Autopsy
This isn’t a comprehensive list of sites with negative pressure, losing the pressure in even one of these locations might have disastrous consequences. Not only would smells start to permeate the building, but airborne toxins would start to spread uncontrollably.
Patients, guests, and employees would all be at risk of exposure to pathogens if there were no HVAC systems in place that complied with OSHA and ASHRAE standards.
In Conclusion
It is crucial to keep an eye on and manage the pressure in the room. Buoyant carries a variety of accessories and equipment you need in building your own negative pressure room. Our professional team can help you in finding everything you require while our technical support team can aid in the field-based troubleshooting of any related issues and difficulties. Get in touch with us.
