Building automation systems can help cut costs

To keep up with changes in healthcare delivery, hospitals are relying heavily on their building automation systems (BAS) to do more than just control the interior environment, according to an article on the Air Conditioning/Heating/Refrigeration News website.

A BAS can identify opportunities to reduce energy consumption and increase patient safety and satisfaction. 

“Hospitals need data to help them develop master facility plans that align with their core missions and ideals and help mitigate risk. With hospital administration teams being downsized and their scopes of responsibility being increased, administrators need more key metrics to run their businesses and meet their core mission goals,” Jim Beam of Trane said in the article. 

The BAS allows patients and visitors access to temperature, lighting, entertainment, nurse call and other low-voltage system settings using a hospital-provided device or patient app. With hospital-acquired infections (HAI), the BAS can monitor the hand-hygiene compliance of staff. It also can monitor and trend temperature, pressure, humidity and air change rates in critical areas, and tie those values to a specific surgery for data mining and trending of HAIs, according to Mike Mattox, Schneider Electric. 

Read the article.