Why is humidity important for hospital?
When relative humidity drops below 35% RH everything will dry up and everyone living in this atmosphere will dehydrate. Typical consequences of dry air at the hospital are:
- Increased transmission of airborne viruses and dry nose and throat not properly protected by natural mucus produced by our body.
- Reduced chances of recovery caused by dry and itchy skin, dry nose, sore throat, sore eyes and premature coagulation.
- Electrostatic discharge, and risk of damage on medical equipment
Humidifying your Hospital will significantly increase the chance of recovery of your patients and reduce the respiratory infections.
A research from the Oregon Department of Health Services has demonstrated that the right levels of humidity can reduce and prevent against harmful bacteria and respiratory infections.
Recommended humidity level for your hospital
The recommended humidity levels for Health care facility are as follows:
- General clinical area: 30 to 60% RH.
- Surgical area such as Operating rooms and recovery rooms: 50 to 60% RH.
- Obstetrical such as Full term nursery and special care nursery: 30 to 60% RH.
(Reference: ASHRAE Handbooks)
We do recommend a minimum humidity level 40%RH.
How can you bring humidity to your hospital?
Most of the humidifier technologies are offered on the market to humidify your hospital.
Selection of the proper humidification solution should be based on the following:
- What is the required maximum humidification capacity (load) required?
- What sources of energy are available on site?
- How is the ventilation system installed and how is the air distributed?
- Which humidification system will require the least amount of energy – calculated for the overall HVAC system?
Central steam boiler is generally installed in a hospital facility , then ILS Live steam humidifier is the obvious solution to bring humidity to your hospital, with a relatively low cost of ownership since minimal maintenance is required on such humidifier.
If the steam from boiler does contain contaminants or chemicals that can be harmful to human health, the use of our ISE steam exchange humidifier is required, it will convert energy from the raw steam into clean and sterile steam which will then be distributed to the ventilation system.
IER electric steam humidifier is another easy and efficient solution to control very precise humidity level (+/-1%RH) to a specific zone such as operation rooms or MRI rooms.
Contact us to locate our local steamOvap representative.