{"id":17247,"date":"2019-12-18T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T19:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/12\/18\/news-10983\/"},"modified":"2019-12-18T11:00:29","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T19:00:29","slug":"news-10983","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/12\/18\/news-10983\/","title":{"rendered":"Modernized Building Automation Systems: An Easier Way for Healthcare Facilities to Achieve Regulatory Compliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Jeff Groat| Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2019 15:05:46 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jeff is the Executive Vice President at Wadsworth Solutions. Wadsworth Solutions is a Master-level BMS EcoXpert<\/em>\"\u2122\".<\/em><\/p>\n

Adherence to the regulatory requirements of the Joint Commission<\/a>, the organization that accredits more than 21,000 US healthcare organizations, can impact the reputation and resulting success of most hospitals and health clinics. Making an effort to maintain or exceed requirements is a sound strategy not only for enhancing the comfort and safety of patients, staff, and visitors, but also for increasing the net worth of an institution and for preparing, in advance, for future regulations that may become more stringent.<\/p>\n

With an uptick in mergers, affiliations, and integrations, how well a facility achieves or exceeds compliance can make or break a deal. As part of due diligence, hospitals need to evaluate the regulatory compliance of the practice or provider they are looking to acquire. Otherwise, hospitals may be taking on potential liability.<\/p>\n

Regulatory compliance, particularly in the area of safety, can be complex to track and fulfill. Consider the work involved in simply determining whether a large hospital\u2019s fire extinguishers are up-to-date and are not damaged or expired. The facility is required, every month, at a minimum, to inspect and update the conditions of their inventory of fire extinguishers. \u00a0If each extinguisher has three annual inspection tags (representing the last three years of inspections) and the building has 1,000 extinguishers, then 3,000 tags need to be stored and organized. The work of sifting through these tags and organizing them in order to meet Joint Commission compliance can be overwhelming. A much easier way is to update fire extinguisher status dynamically, using a properly configured building management<\/a> system, which can then produce an instantaneous report. Such a digital solution is more productive and much easier to manage.<\/p>\n

\"building <\/p>\n

Building automation both simplifies facility compliance and generates energy cost savings<\/h2>\n

When achieving Joint Commission compliance, fire extinguishers are only the tip of the iceberg.\u00a0 For example, air quality, which encompasses air humidity, temperature, particulate concentrations, ventilation, and air pressure (how fast the air moves through a room) is critical in a connected hospital<\/a> environment. An unoccupied surgical room is required to process six air changes per hour. Then, just prior to surgery (and during surgery), the air change rate needs to accelerate to 24 air changes per hour. Records surrounding air change data must be meticulously maintained in order to produce reports that meet Joint Commission requirements. In this way, healthcare facilities are protected from possible court litigation.<\/p>\n

As a Schneider Electric EcoXpert<\/a>, our company Wadsworth Solutions<\/a> supports healthcare institutions as a technology systems integrator. Integration implies the interoperability of multiple systems that don\u2019t necessarily speak the same language. We harmonize these systems using Modbus, BACnet, LonWorks, and OPC protocols to link diverse technologies that help drive timely decisions. We are unique in the marketplace because our integrations impact multiple areas which greatly influence both health care facility compliance and energy savings:<\/p>\n