4 Considerations for Facility Preparedness
Facilities today must guard against many forms of crisis that threaten patients, healthcare workers, and valuable assets, such as medical technology. The COVID-19 pandemic tested the extent to which a medical facility is resilient in the face of crisis, as have natural disasters, cybersecurity breaches, and other emergencies.
What other than preparedness determines a facility’s resilience? A pre-established plan of action allows facility managers to respond effectively. Many challenges in the healthcare industry are unpredictable. However, there are ways to take action now to develop critical environment solutions, including HVAC commissioning, that prevent the predictable and soften the blow of events that are out of your facility’s control.
Our critical environment manufacturing team recommends these four considerations to bolster medical facilities’ resilience:
- Enhancing cybersecurity
- Guarding against natural disasters
- Infection prevention
- Energy efficiency
Cybersecurity for Your Critical Environment
Bad actors have turned their attention to hospital infrastructure as a vulnerable environment that can be exploited. The Journal of the American Medical Association notes that cybersecurity threats doubled from 2016 to 2021.
These threats harm patients by causing outages to key medical services and by exposing personal health data. Ceasing operations decreases facility revenue, as does cooperation with ransomware attackers who request hefty sums.
Your custom HVAC system, other key infrastructure, and medical technology may be vulnerable to cyber attack.. To combat exposure and prevent threats, we outfit our critical environment HVAC solutions with specific protocols that link the HVAC system to the larger building automation system.
Resilience Against Natural Disasters
Critical environment HVAC products can also play a role in shielding your facility from the potential effects of natural disasters. Climate change has exacerbated the occurrence and severity of these events, so it is important to consider what environmental hazards are most likely to occur in your region and take steps to mitigate harm.
For instance, medical facilities in U.S. seismic zones should consider purchasing from a critical environment manufacturing facility whose products are certified for use in these areas. Watch this video of a signature fan filter unit from AJ Manufacturing undergoing a seismic zone “shake test.” This test demonstrates our product’s reliability in the event that seismic activity should occur at your medical facility.
Permanent and Flexible Infection Prevention Measures
The CDC estimates that Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) cost medical facilities between $28 and $45 billion each year and are responsible for 100,000 deaths annually. Although infections are bound to occur, significant methods for prevention exist, including:
- HEPA and ULPA filters for air supply vents
- Laminar flow technology
- Comprehensively designed custom HVAC systems
- Strategic positioning of air distribution products
- UV disinfection technology
To support this mission, AJ Manufacturing designs infection prevention products to protect your facility, patients, and staff. We ensure that your facility is fully advised during the planning, commissioning, and installation phases of your project, so you can maximize our components’ effectiveness.
Critical Environment Energy Efficiency
Resilience doesn’t solely apply to emergency situations. Your medical facility reveals its resilience when your decision makers can see beyond immediate needs and look toward future challenges ahead.
Energy efficiency is on the minds of many facility leadership teams. Although there are benefits to increasing your facility’s energy efficiency now, this initiative will become more useful in the coming years. As energy consumption increasingly bests energy efficiency, facilities will need to consider their carbon footprint as a way to prevent outages, prevent the increasing cost of nonrenewable energy, and meet their patients’ ethical expectations.
Our critical environment manufacturing facility uses energy-efficient technology throughout our line of critical environment HVAC solutions, including our ceiling system lighting and Criti-Clean™ Ultra fan filter units.
Choose AJ Manufacturing to Support Your Mission-Critical Environments
When your medical facility is resilient against the many challenges it may face, you are able to go about your work uninterrupted. Patients receive exceptional care, staff thrive as vital members of our communities, and new medical technologies become time-honored practices.
Nothing pleases AJ Manufacturing more than serving our partners’ facilities. That’s why we continue to develop solutions that benefit the medical industry and many others.
Reach out to our team today to discover how we can help support your facility’s short- and long-term resilience planning. Our customized products support medical spaces beyond what you’d expect from most commercial HVAC companies.
To get an estimate on our custom HVAC products, contact Amy VanWagner, National Sales Manager, at amyvanwagner@ajmfg.us. You can also contact us online or call us at (816) 231-5522.