Basic Documentation

Siemens Industry, Inc. Page 7 of 12
Document No. 149-903
maintained and also warns them of any loss of the
requi
red differential pressure. Differential pressure
monitoring also allows remote monitoring and
provides alarm indication to the building automation
system (BAS), which allows historical protective
environment room operational data to be collected. If
alarms are monitored by the BAS Remote
Notification application these alarms can be
assessed by infection control team. The alarm
monitoring process should include alarm escalation
procedures so corrective action can be implemented
and documented
Combined Protective Environment
and Airborne Infection Isolation
A patient with an immunocompromised system may
also have a contagious disease. In this situation, the
patient must be protected from additional infectious
organisms, while at the same time facility personnel
must also be protected from airborne agents
emanating from the patient. To fulfill this
requirement, the patient should be placed in a
negatively pressurized airborne infection isolation
room to contain the patient’s infectious airborne
pathogens and, thus, protect the healthcare workers.
In addition, the ventilation control system in the
anteroom may be adjustable to maintain the
anteroom at either a higher positive or negative
pressure than the patient room by increasing the
anteroom supply or exhaust. Figure 4 illustrates this
arrang
ement.
With the anteroom at a higher positive pressure, the
patient room essentially becomes negative with
respect to the anteroom. The resulting directional
airflows help keep airborne organisms from
migrating into the patient room from the corridor,
while also retarding patient room airborne organisms
from migrating out to the corridor.
12
Staff members
do not have to mask before entering the anteroom if
the anteroom is positive to the patient room, and if
air is directly exhausted to the outside and a
minimum of 10 ACH.
13
12. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), December 2003,
Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control in Health-
Care Facilities, p. 37 (middle figure)
13. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), December 2003,
Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control in Health-
Care Facilities, p. 38