There's a reason that the 450,000-square-foot El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, California, has been called “the most technologically advanced hospital” in the country. The facility, which opened last fall, features robotic surgery suites, autonomous supply carts, biometric palm scanning for patient registration, and a
Star Trek-like voice-activated communications system that connects staff with each other individually.
There are also some less visible innovative features. If you could peek into the hospital's ceilings and walls, you would see an energy-saving HVAC system that will soon be integrated with the hospital's electronic patient system-technology many hospitals have dreamed about, but no other hospital has yet accomplished.
Taken together, this integrated system will push the edge of what's possible in patient comfort, energy savings, and electronic patient systems, freeing up staff to spend more time on patient care and less on administrative and operational duties. It's a national model for tomorrow's energy-saving, healthy, and efficient hospital.
Working with El Camino Hospital and KMD Architects from the beginning, our engineering team chose an energy-saving tracking variable air volume (VAV) HVAC system that allows modulation of supply and return air volumes in different spaces or zones. The building management system sequences the system up or down to reduce energy consumption during the occupied mode and has the capability of setting individual rooms to a motion-sensed or pre-scheduled “unoccupied” setting for further energy reduction. In either mode, patient safety and infection control are a priority. By employing the tracking system, both supply outlets and return inlets are monitored to maintain minimum air change rates and pressure relationships with other rooms and areas in the hospital.
Future plans for the hospital call for connecting the HVAC system, with its ability to change settings from “occupied” to “unoccupied” with the patient registration system, allowing the HVAC system to power up in an individual room when a patient is registered and admitted or power down when a patient is discharged.
