Ventilation Performance Evaluation of a Negative-Pressurized Isolation Room for Emergency Departments.

Due to the emergence of COVID-19 becoming a significant pandemic worldwide, hospitals are expected to be capable and flexible in responding to the pandemic situation. Moreover, as frontline healthcare staff, emergency department (ED) staff have a high possibility of exposure risk to infectious airborne. The ED isolation room will possibly and effectively isolate the infected patient, therefore safekeeping frontline healthcare staff and controlling the outbreak. However, there is still limited knowledge available regarding isolation room facilities specifically for the emergency department. In this study, field measurement is conducted in an ED isolation room located in Taiwan. CFD simulation is employed to simulate and investigate the airflow and airborne contaminant distribution. Instead of high air-change rates (ACH) that purposes for dilution, this study proposes the arrangement of exhaust air grilles to improve the contaminant removal. The results reveal that the exhaust air grille placed behind the patient's head is optimized to dilute airborne contaminants.

Infection Control Improvement of a Negative-Pressurized Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus raises alarming concern around the healthcare facilities due to the significant increase in patient inflow. Negative-pressurized isolation rooms have been utilized in various health care facilities to isolate the patients from active community contact. Several studies have highlighted isolation rooms improvement. However, limited knowledge is available regarding the isolation room facilities for pediatric intensive care units (PICU) to accommodate more than one pediatric patient. In this aspect, this study investigates a negative-pressurized isolation facility in PICU with minimal design modifications with the possibility that it can accommodate more than one pediatric patient. The field measurement tests were conducted to ensure the design compliance of Taiwan CDC. Then, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was further utilized to numerically evaluate the HVAC system role and the ventilation performance towards infection control. A protected air-jet curtain system with a new ventilation layout was proposed through this study to enhance the protection for both pediatric patients and medical staff. The concentration decay was monitored and recorded within 900 s to evaluate the performance. The concentration can be reduced to 504 ppm for case 1, 620 ppm for case 2, 501 ppm for case 3, and 486 ppm for case 4. In addition, the injected bioaerosol particles could be well diluted dealing with two patients presents a good performance. The results revealed that this proposed configuration could feasibly accommodate two patients with a significant contamination control to protect the medical staff and patients.

Performance Improvement of a Negative-Pressurized Isolation Room for Infection Control.

Negative-pressurized isolation rooms have been approved effectively and applied widely for infectious patients. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 has led to a huge demand for negative-pressurized isolation rooms. It is critical and essential to ensure infection control performance through best practice of ventilation systems and optimum airflow distribution within isolation rooms. This study investigates a retrofitting project of an isolation room to accommodate COVID-19 patients. The field measurement has been conducted to ensure the compliance with the design specification from the CDC of Taiwan. The pressure differentials between negative-pressurized isolation rooms and corridor areas should be at least 8 Pa, while the air change rate per hour (ACH) should be 8-12 times. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is applied to evaluate the ventilation performance and contamination control. Different layout arrangements of exhaust air have been proposed to enhance the ventilation performance for infection control. A simple projected air-jet curtain has been proposed in the simulation model to enhance extra protection of medical staff. The resulting ventilation control revealed that the contamination control can be improved through the minor adjustment of exhaust air arrangement and the application of an air-jet curtain.