Learn More About the Air Distribution System Standard for Health Care Facilities
Your health care facility wants to ensure the safety of your patients and workers with superior indoor air quality (IAQ). High quality air filtration, of course, prevents airborne contaminants such as infectious disease, from causing hospital-acquired infections and spreading from person to person.
Although this prevention is important generally for your facilities, you may also have particular areas of your building that demand even more stringent standards, such as in operating rooms and treatment wards where vulnerable, immunocompromised patients need the utmost protection and an even higher standard of care.
Therefore, like many health care facilities, you’ve likely sought out the recommendations of ASHRAE, or the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, to ensure that your high priority needs can be met with metrics proposed by industry experts you can trust and whose mission is humanitarian, much like yours.
Or, perhaps you’re a health care facility who recognizes the necessity of developing more stringent standards, or you’re preparing a renovation that will include a critical environment, and you need to know more.
Experienced with air filtration or not, it is important to know that – along with ASHRAE – you have another partner in this journey toward a highly effective, sustainable air distribution system – and that’s AJ Manufacturing.
We build our air distribution products so they can meet the highest standards for indoor air quality as proposed by ASHRAE, while also customizing them for your specific needs. This article explores some of the specifics of ASHRAE’s Standard 170 for the Ventilation of Health Care Facilities and describes how AJ can partner with you to meet your facility’s aspirations.
What is ASHRAE?
ASHRAE is a society of engineers from the heating, refrigerating, and air-conditioning industries who work tirelessly to advance the health of human beings and the planet. They accomplish this mission through their studies, recommendations, and educational opportunities to benefit those who use the services they represent, like health care facilities and other critical environments that use custom HVAC products.
What is ASHRAE 170?
Standard 170 is the name of ASHRAE’s specific standards for air distribution systems in health care facilities. Since 2008, ASHRAE has been providing recommendations for these critical environments because these spaces demand excellent indoor air quality for patient and worker safety.
Several updates, amendments, and interpretations have been made to Standard 170 since 2008, including a 2021 edition, along with consistently updated addenda (the most recent was approved for publication in September 2022). One of the more thoroughly discussed addenda occurred in 2017 with the addition of ASHRAE 170 ventilation table 7.1. This resource provided updated guidance on air filtration in inpatient spaces.
ASHRAE Standard 170 is typically used in conjunction with their HVAC Design Manual for Hospitals and Clinics for design guidelines that support indoor air quality standards outlined in Standard 170.
ASHRAE 170 and AJ Manufacturing’s Air Distribution Products
While this review of ASHRAE 170 is by no means comprehensive, it is important to recognize its value for the healthcare industry. Considering that ASHRAE was founded in the late 19th century and includes more recent – and prescient – recommendations beginning in 2008 (twelve years before the COVID-19 pandemic) is enough to marvel at this organization’s commitment to our health through their tireless advocacy for IAQ.
When your medical facility is exploring ASHRAE’s standards, recommendations, interpretations, and educational resources, remember that AJ Manufacturing designs air distribution systems to support ASHRAE – and your facility’s work – so that patients can heal and healthcare workers can give of themselves safely and effectively.
Our air distribution products conform to all ASHRAE 170 requirements, including this highlighted selection of our state-of-art custom HVAC solutions:
- Ceiling grids
- Laminar flow diffusers
- A wide variety of innovative supply and return grilles
- HEPA and ULPA filters
- Cleanroom and critical environment products (which conform to additional requirements for this controlled environment solution)
How to Partner with AJ Manufacturing for Air Distribution Products that Meet ASHRAE 170 Standards
We look forward to working with you when you need effective, customized solutions for your critical environment – or any air distribution system. We ensure that every aspect of ASHRAE Standard 170 is accounted for in the implementation of our designs, having referenced each iteration of Standard 170, including the ASHRAE 170 ventilation table 7.1, and more.
The care we take with our products and our clients has paid off: through ingenuity, strategic planning, and consistency, we’re back to our pre-pandemic lead times on all orders.
Contact us online, or call us at (816) 231-5522 during regular business hours. We hope you’re having a productive start to your new year, and we look forward to helping you meet – and even exceed – the regulations and standards your buildings require.