Comparison of ventilation strategies in intensive care units for airborne infection control

ABSTRACT

Healthcare facilities are one of the most important buildings in an outbreak. With the tremendous increment of bed occupancy rates in intensive care units, cross-infection risks to healthcare workers also increase. Along with the personal and societal measures, airborne infection prevention via ventilation systems should be evaluated in detail for each design. In this study, the infection prevention performances of three different ventilation layouts inside a selected intensive care unit design, located in Gazi University Hospital, are compared. Three different ventilation strategies as conventional (head supply-feet exhaust, Case 1), switched (head exhaust-feet supply, Case 2), and local exhaust (Case 3) are evaluated with respect to their aerosol distribution characteristics, airflow patterns, and temperature distribution characteristics. As a result, aerosol removal efficiencies of conventional, switched, and local-exhaust approaches are found to be 18.7%, 68.3%, and 97.8%, respectively, whereas the temperature distribution in Case 3 may also meet the thermal comfort requirements.

KEYWORDS:

• Infection control
• local exhaust
• HVAC
• intensive care
• COVID-19

Nomenclature

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).