Undergoing renovation and expansion leads to a hospital reconsidering its critical environment monitoring for the present and the future. The medical facility in question was looking for room pressure monitors that would meet existing and any new codes and guidelines released in upcoming years. They didn't want to install room pressure monitors to be only minimally code compliant; rather, they were looking to meet requirements and monitor many ASHRAE Standard 170 spaces that don't strictly require monitors. Monitoring is crucial for proper cleanliness conditions, and the Joint Commission and CMS inspectors tend to scrutinize all ASHRAE 170 pressurized spaces.
The facility decided they wanted to proactively monitor and trend environmental parameters such as differential pressure, temperature, humidity, and air changes per hour. Proactive monitoring reduces manual inspections for preventative maintenance, which is commonplace in many hospitals. Instead, parameters are logged in the building management system and produce reports when inspections take place.
Setra FLEX was chosen to monitor more than 200 critical spaces within the medical facility. FLEX's alarming capabilities, large display, and flexibility to configure inputs from either the touch screen or over BACnet make it adaptable to any application within a hospital. Also important to the facility is Setra's dead-ended capacitive sensing technology as it requires no cleaning or maintenance. Setra Lite and its ability to integrate with FLEX to provide secondary pressure measurements and a clear visual pressure indication is also a key aspect in upgrading the critical environment monitoring.
