Learn What Compliance Requirements Apply to Your Industry
Facilities managers are juggling more responsibilities than ever before. They often feel that they’re being spread thin, given that their expertise is required for so many aspects of their facility’s performance. Keeping up with facility trends, the latest compliance information, and the technologies that can make improvements is frequently challenging, when day-to-day operations require attention first.
However, a facility manager’s execution of standards and regulatory requirements is essential to the facility’s viability and its excellence. This is particularly true for standards related to air filtration, as a facility’s indoor air quality (IAQ) is a matter of safety and the business’ bottom line.
If you’re in an industry that requires exceptional air filtration you must focus time, resources, and attention on this subject. Use this guide to determine your industry’s specific IAQ standards.
General Air Filtration Standards
Much has changed in the past few years with regard to indoor air quality in commercial spaces. The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath created more urgency for facilities to adopt measures to improve their IAQ.
To ensure that commercial buildings have the resources they need, the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) created minimum ventilation standards and recommendations for further improvements to protect occupants in facilities. Here’s a helpful summary of how to use this resource:
- Key standards: Standard 62.1 and 62.2, “Ventilation and Acceptable Indoor Air Quality.”
- What to know: These standards, created in 2022, provide essential guidance for facility managers who are interested in scaling their air quality measures, as well as essential information to provide key stakeholders during this acquisition process.
- Where to go for comprehensive information: Visit ASHRAE’s webpage for these standards and learn more about the methodology behind its revisions.
- Critical air filtration products: Implementation depends on your facility’s current needs, but you may require the basics, including HEPA filters and fan filter units.
- Further reading: For those who are new to air filtration, read this article on its significance as part of your commercial building’s air distribution system.
Along with these standards, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also provides recommendations. Because there are no federal guidelines for indoor air quality in commercial buildings, EPA resources can serve as best practices for facility managers, including how to get started with a building assessment to determine your needs.
Air Filtration Standards For Healthcare Facilities
Healthcare facilities follow the guidelines of two important entities, the American Society For Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) and ASHRAE. Often working in collaboration, these governing bodies develop recommendations and guides that explain them. This breakdown will help you get started on your goal to ensure you’re meeting air filtration standards:
- Key standards: ASHE/ASHRAE Standard 170, “Ventilation of Health Care Facilities.”
- What to know: These standards are continually updated to ensure the best approaches to indoor air quality safety in medical spaces.
- Where to go for comprehensive information: Visit ASHRAE’s resource on this standard, where you can find educational resources, downloadable guides, a podcast, information on conferences and conventions, and more.
- Critical air filtration products: Health facility air filtration requires hospital HEPA air filters, ULPA filters, fan filter units, ceiling systems, diffusers, supply and return grilles, dampers, louvers, and the many other essentials to prevent infections. Operating room air filtration in particular requires a ceiling system that provides all-in-one air filtration and distribution to support infection prevention in these specialized environments.
- Further reading: To learn more about the products required to meet healthcare facility standards, read “Understanding Standard 170 and How Air Distribution Solutions Can Help.”
Air Filtration Standards For Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
US Pharmacopoeia (USP) develops standards for the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, including air filtration standards to prevent product contamination. These standards include compounding in healthcare facilities, not just manufacturing facilities that exclusively make medicines. Here is how to ensure your manufacturing facility complies with USP standards:
- Key standards: USP 795, 797, and 800.
- What to know: These standards were recently revised and updated.
- Where to go for comprehensive information: Visit the USP website to review the latest revisions to these standards.
- Critical air filtration products: Much like hospital air filtration, these standards require the use of HEPA filters, ceiling systems, fan filter units, supply and return vents, externally ventilated rooms, and more.
- Further reading: Check out this resource for more information on required products that help your facility meet these standards.
How to Find Knowledgeable Partners For Air Filtration Support
As you begin commissioning air filtration products for your facility, you may find a great deal of support by dedicating time to resources developed by the governing bodies that create standards for your industry.
However, the ability to discuss the implementation of these standards may require you to go beyond digital resources and ensure you have a trusted partner you can regularly communicate with.
During the commissioning phase, your air filtration manufacturer, architecture team, engineers, and construction partners will play roles in positioning your facility for success with regulatory compliance and performance.
For example, those seeking operating room air filtration solutions can ask their ceiling system engineer and manufacturer how their product complies with Standard 170. Your chosen company should be able to articulate how their hospital HEPA filters and more contribute to your hospital’s air filtration requirements.
Facility managers deserve significant support when it comes to the many tasks they handle to help facilities thrive. For compliance needs, you’ll find there is an entire community of knowledgeable and experienced professionals ready to support you.