The story of the Sambhavna Clinic, a non-profit holistic health clinic in Bhopal, India, built to treat those injured by the Union Carbide toxic gas release in 1984. enlarge video
Healthcare Ventilation Research Collaborative: Displacement Ventilation Research
Authors: Arash Guity, PE, Bob Gulick, PE, Paul Marmion, PEng
December 2009. 30 pages.
Summary
The Healthcare Ventilation Research Collaborative (HVRC) was formed in 2006 by two healthcare engineering design companies (Stantec and Mazzetti Nash Lipsey Burch) to consolidate the efforts of several organizations toward the common goal of promoting improved patient and staff safety and sustainable design in healthcare facilities through the implementation of innovative engineering concepts that have been thoroughly and scientifically documented. In Phase I, research was conducted to assess both natural ventilation and DV in exam rooms, patient rooms and emergency waiting rooms. Testing in 2006 and 2007 in vendor laboratories and in the field supported the hypothesis that low sidewall ventilation at two thirds the air flow of traditional mixing overhead ventilation (OHV) had equal or better performance in all areas. As with any change, practical questions arose from hospital design, operations and code enforcement agencies regarding DV. The questions precipitated a more formal research effort in 2008 to more rigorously test the findings from 2006 and 2007, and to create and validate a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) design tool to respond to the questions that had been raised.
This paper is the sixth in a series of papers in which the Collaborative provides research and analysis of factors influencing patient, worker and environmental safety and sustainability in the healthcare sector. The editors of this series are Peter Orris, MD, MPH and Susan Kaplan, JD.
