Ensuring operational reliability and comfort at all times

Supporting comfortable and energy-efficient healthcare facilities

Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) has a direct impact on the well-being of patients and healthcare workers and includes indoor air quality as well as acoustic and thermal comfort. To enable a positive IEQ and operational reliability, a hospital’s energy use is more than twice as much as other general public buildings. This is due to high space heating, cooling and ventilation loads, continuous operation for the majority of its facilities, and the high quantity of medical equipment. 

Therefore, healthcare facilities must consider everything from operational reliability and efficiency to acoustic design and sustainability. In addition, there is also increased need for facility designs to be flexible and be built quickly to accommodate ad-hoc changes during an emergency.

Facilities need to quickly change original space design to accommodate new needs

Recent healthcare emergencies globally underscore the need for flexibility to manage ad-hoc challenges, such as emergency increases in demand for hospital beds and isolation rooms. Compared to conventional structural materials, Armacell's ArmaPET solution is light-weight and enables offsite fabrication and modular construction. Made from recycled plastic bottles, ArmaPET requires 85% less energy to manufacture and emits 37% less carbon dioxide. To enable flexibility in the midst of change, minimum IEQ standards are necessary for all spaces within healthcare facilities. That makes higher quality thermal and acoustic solutions, such as ArmaFlex and ArmaComfort, ideal as they be quickly installed especially within tight space constraints.

Unwanted noise is distracting and can disturb rest and recovery

Noise from physical vibration of materials and equipment and lead to structure-borne and air-borne noise. This airborne-to-structure-borne conversion can repeat multiple times until the sound source stops. Other sounds, such as reflected sound, can also occur, for example in technical ducts around pipes. Studies show that 20% of respondents were affected by noise from sanitary fitting, especially during the night. Armacell’s acoustic insulation products enable superior noise reduction performance with thinner thicknesses, enabling space savings for other parts of the building and system design.

A hospital uses more than twice as much energy as any other public building

The need to sustain around-the-clock operational reliability makes healthcare facilities complex, with pipes and air ducts that traverse throughout the entire building to supply fresh air, cold and warm water, and dispose waste-water. In addition to air conditioning hospital rooms, chilled water ensures the necessary conditions in operating theatres and pathology rooms. Cooling is also needed to operate numerous medical-technical systems, store temperature-sensitive medicines and power IT areas. That makes energy efficiency and prevention of energy loss essential to daily operations. Armacell's thermal insulation solutions are fibre-free with extremely low volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions and support LEED certification goals.