Performance improvement of an operating room in a health-care facility

Not only operation rooms but also modern biochemical industries are increasingly turning to cleanroom technology for the infectious control or the development of new products. The objective of this study is to present the strategic approach on performance improvement for a hospital operation room under limited budget. The understanding of the key parameters contributing to performance of cleanroom can be developed by case study using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) aided simulation and then validated by field testing. Numerical simulation and field-testing of a full-scale operation room have been carried out in a district hospital in Taichung. A physical partition curtain has been conducted around the HEPA filter of an operation room to validate the improvement of air flow pattern. The results from computer simulation indicated that the improvement of airflow could be achieved by the optimal length of a physical partition curtain. Ventilation performance could be assessed extensively not only by calculation of ventilation indices but also by field test data of airborne particles counts and microbial counts.