For one hospital within the famed Texas Medical Center – the largest life sciences destination in the world – purchasing air filters based on ‘first cost’ was a practice that didn’t quite turn out as expected.  Instead of lowering air filtration expenses – no trivial expense considering the hospital’s 13 million square feet of indoor space – the first-cost strategy led to surprisingly high outlays.  Not so surprisingly, it also led to the search for a better approach.  This the hospital found by working with Camfil, the world’s leading provider of high efficiency clean air solutions.

The problem was that the low-cost filters quickly degraded, requiring increasing amount of energy to maintain the airflow and remove potentially harmful particles from the indoor environment.  That meant higher energy costs, but it also meant a reduced lifespan for the filters, which needed to be replaced frequently, sparking added labor and disposal costs, not to mention the costs of all the new filters.  What seemed like a bargain ‘up front’ actually resulted in inflated costs over time.

While Camfil filters – designed to maintain their efficiency far longer than more traditionally designed air filters – may cost more initially, their ability to maintain peak efficiency means they require less energy.  That lowers energy costs over the filter’s lifespan.  And because Camfil filters last longer than more conventional products, replacement, disposal, and labor costs are all reduced, as well.

Working with Camfil, and leveraging the company’s unique Life Cycle Cost analysis, the Texas hospital was able to see that it could achieve significant cost savings – in fact, a 42 percent lower cost of ownership for its clean air solution.  Much of this came from reduced energy requirements: indeed, by switching to Camfil filters, the hospital could reduce the energy use of its air filtration system by 60 percent.

Better yet, it could achieve these savings while actually boosting indoor air quality.  Camfil’s unique CamField mobile filtration testing laboratory — placed on site to test various Camfil products against the hospital’s existing air solutions – showed conclusively that the Camfil filters performed better in both particle and energy efficiency.  The result was a clear win-win: cleaner air and lower costs.

That’s an equation that resonates with any business – but particularly a hospital, which needs to keep the air free of potentially harmful particles while also keeping an eye on the bottom line.  Little wonder, then, that the Texas hospital switched to Camfil’s clean air solutions – with both the medical center, and those who rely on it, reaping the benefits.  The complete case study can be downloaded here.

The world leader in air filtration systems, Camfil provides clean air solutions for hospitals, hotels, office buildings, educational institutions, and pharmaceutical and biotech companies.  We provide the tools to achieve sustainability, maintain high air quality, and reduce airborne infections — all while lowering total cost of ownership.  Camfil customers go green without ever sacrificing performance.  For more information, visit www.camfil.us.