Progress in ventilation operations standards
Challenges in controlling temperature and humidity in critical spaces continue to be a leading finding during physical environment surveys. One of the challenges in managing these elements is that no national guidance regarding the operation of ventilation systems exists. While the American National Standards Institute/ASHRAE/American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE) Standard 170, Ventilation of Health Care Facilities, sets minimum requirements for system design, there is a significant difference between designing a system and operating one.
Standard 170 provides exceptions to certain design requirements for surgical and procedural rooms. Footnote “o” for Tables 7-1 and 8-1 states, “Surgeons or surgical procedures may require room temperatures, ventilation rates, humidity ranges, and/or air distribution methods that exceed the minimum indicated ranges.”
Footnote “o” indicates that operational aspects of these rooms will need to vary from the ranges provided within the design standard. If this exception is provided, one must wonder why temperature and humidity are a leading finding.
Unfortunately, it has become a practice to evaluate operational aspects of existing systems based on the requirements for designing new ventilation systems. Since 2015, ASHE has advocated for the use of ventilation management plans to establish the operational requirements of ventilation systems. To further this effort, ASHRAE and ASHE have implemented the development of ASHRAE/ASHE Guideline 43, Operations Guideline for Ventilation of Health Care Facilities. While this guideline is still being developed, it promotes ASHE’s long-standing position that utilities within health care must be properly managed.
In its March 2021 issue, Health Facilities Management published the article “Nine steps to developing a ventilation management plan,” which provides practical guidance on this issue.
Jonathan Flannery, MHSA, CHFM, FASHE, FACHE, is senior associate director of ASHE regulatory affairs.
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