AAF's Custom Solution Helped Private Hospital Attain CBAHI Standards and Reopen
LOCATION: Middle East
SEGMENT
• One of the major private hospitals
Filtration Situation
COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a serious public health hazard and Saudi Arabia’s health authority – Ministry of Health (MOH) has taken strict measures to control the spread of this outbreak. The rapid precautionary measures involve, among others, closing its borders to foreigners to closing the hospitals which are not following the guidelines set by CBAHI (Central Board of Accreditation of Healthcare Institution) to treat coronavirus patients.
In this action, one of the private hospitals was shut down by MOH after several hospital employees got infected with COVID-19 by attending to patients and then socialising with people in their accommodation. The hospital approached the consultant to support the renewal of the facility.
The AAF International Solution
The consultant contacted AAF engineers for the appropriate solution. Site visit analysis brings out various points to consider for altering the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) room. According to Saudi Health Council – CBAHI, Airborne Infection isolation Rooms (AIIRs) ICUs should be negatively pressurized (minimum -2.5 Pascal) with air to be totally exhausted outside (100%) through HEPA filter with minimum 12 air changes per hour.
For Negative Pressure Isolation Rooms:
The sales engineers recommended industrial-grade air purifier AstroPure 500 for their ICUs.
AAF’s AstroPure 500 is a stand-alone complete air purification system to recirculate and clean the air in a controlled environment. The unit has 3 stages of filtration with UV-light. The pre-filter captures the airborne particles and prolongs the life span of a higher efficiency filter. The gas-phase filter effectively removes odors. The UV-light then kills the virus and recirculates the clean air through the final filter stage HEPA. The HEPA opted for the design was Astrocel II (H14) to remove fine particles, viruses, bacteria, fungus, molds with an efficiency of 99.995% at 0.3μm. This powerful system delivers 500 CFM operating airflow. Variable speed controls enable the AstroPure 500 to be run at lower speeds wherever less airflow is required.
For Safe Exhaust:
AAF recommended high-efficiency filter Astrocel-II HEPA filters for the safe exhaust of the ICUs. The mini-pleat Astrocel-II filters are auto-scan tested HEPA filters and are ideal for demanding operating conditions in critical applications.
Results
The consultant and the hospital safety engineers were convinced with the solution and partnered with AAF. The custom-designed solutions were manufactured, tested and installed in the ICUs to provide clean air to treat the COVID-19 patients and to protect the hospital staff from the spread. The hospital also upgraded all the other parameters to improve the hospital environment. Once after the successful installation of the AAF solution, CBHAI has evaluated the hospital and provided the acceptance letter to reopen the services. From this day forth, AAF has become the preferred partner for the hospital.