This session is designed for facilities, design and construction professionals interested in increasing their knowledge of the application and use of air barriers in hospitals and Medical Arts type buildings. Researchers, architects and code writers have shown that attention to specific details in both new and retrofitted envelopes result in better performing buildings with better comfort and long durability as well as lower energy consumption.

Air leakage through the building envelope is silent, invisible and cunning. It causes numerous building envelope problems including wetting of cavity materials, spalling of masonry, premature corrosion of metals, blistering of paint, icicles, staining of contraction. Continuity is important but strength is even more important.
In buildings, the air barrier system must be designed, and specified on plans. It has specific performance criteria and specific material requirements.

Learning Objectives:

• How better building envelopes can reduce energy demand on heating and cooling and reduce energy and increase comfort.
• The significance of each part of the building envelope (the top, bottom, vertical shafts and the walls) relative to the efficient operation.
• What problems can occur with the lack of compartmentalization and/or decoupling between floors in buildings over 3 stories?
• Discover the materials and methodology used in air sealing Hospitals and Medical Arts type buildings

The outcomes-based approach used within the Quebec University Hospital Centre’s deep energy retrofit was integral to the success of the project. Major HVAC upgrades to four of its five hospitals achieved a collective reduction of 30% in energy consumption, 29% to utility bills and 56% in GHG emissions – including $2,734,499 in annual cost savings. These outcomes earned the project CHES’s 2017 Wayne McLellan Award of Excellence, a 2017 ASHRAE Technology Award honourable mention for Existing Health Facilities, and an Energia Award for best integrated projects in Quebec.

This webinar will examine the operational strategy behind the deep outcomes achieved and will highlight how the integrated, outcome-based approach enabled the CHU’s staff to get involved early in the process. On top of maximizing outcomes, the approach made sure to solve the various operating issues brought out by the CHU’s staff, and it addressed as much deferred maintenance as possible. It also ensured the accountability of the design-build firm, who provided all required training to properly operate the buildings and exceed the expected outcomes. This ongoing communication between stakeholders will be discussed within a phase-by-phase account of the project (concept design, detailed study, construction, optimization, performance follow-up). 

Learning Outcomes
Following this session, participants will be able to:

• Identify operational issues that can be addressed using an outcome-based approach.
• Communicate these operational issues to your partner firm with a focus on the WHAT rather than the HOW, and leverage the creative solutions that result from an outcome-based approach.
• Take advantage of the accountability provided by outcome-based projects to ensure proper training program from your partner firm.

Refrigerant is the most essential thermodynamic component of cooling systems. It is important to understand the intricacies of refrigerants and making the right choice for the environment. Consulting engineers, architects, system operators and building owners are responsible for understanding refrigerant technology and how it relates to system efficiency, refrigerant availability, lifecycle cost and maintenance.  

We will cover the following topics:

• Understanding global regulations and how the Montreal Protocol and the Kyoto Protocol and the recent Kigali Amendment on HFCs, and how this will impact the future of the HVAC industry
• Understanding the phase out/phase down schedules of refrigerants, and the best way to plan for the future
• Understanding how the issue of global climate change will impact the HVAC industry.
• The economics of refrigerant choice - balancing capital against lifetime energy cost.
• Learn about the next generation of refrigerants that are in development that minimize both the ozone impact, and the global warming impact of HVAC refrigerants.

Steam is the most commonly used medium to distribute heat in health care facilities, due to its high energy content and the ease with which its temperature can be regulated. Steam has given up its useful energy as it condenses to water.

Mechanical steam traps which open when water is present and shut when steam is present have traditionally been used to discharge this water. The mechanical steam trap has been the Achilles heel of the steam system being the source of large energy losses and the majority of operational problems.

New technology now offers a permanent solution to this problem, which is more efficient than even a fully functional mechanical trap. New technology now not only offers permanent energy savings, and thus GHG savings, but also eliminates costly operational expenses needed to replace failed mechanical traps.

This presentation describes the training and roll out of infection prevention and control during construction, renovation and maintenance to our staff and contractors. The intent is to minimize healthcare associated infections due to construction, renovation and maintenance. This training will ensure infection prevention and control guidelines are included in all phases of facility design and implementation of work in a healthcare facility to reduce the risk of healthcare associated infections. The intent is to ensure staff understand the significance of following infection prevention and control guidelines as part of the overall fundamental importance of patient care.

In June 2016 the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities adopted the new Model Standards for compounding in Pharmacies in Canada. Within the new standards there is a new requirement to perform certain compounding processes within a certified cleanroom space. This new standard has lead to a requirement for many pharmacies and hospitals to build new pharmacy compounding facilities.

A key requirement of the new standard is that the compounding must be performed in controlled rooms meeting an ISO Class 7 cleanroom standard. Similarly, anterooms must be provided meeting the ISO standards. Complicating matters further for hospitals is are the requirements to further upgrade facilities to the latest building code standards which introduce other, sometimes competing, requirements. In this presentation we will focus on key challenges and solutions when completing pharmacy compounding facility upgrades.

Safe and effective service delivery needs safe, effective, and well-designed health care facilities.  The first edition of Z8000 was a timely response to a national need for a Standard that codified Canadian and international best practices to create a common design reference for health care, and it pushed the field to accept innovative new design and construction ideas that would promote safe infrastructure for all building occupants and provide supportive, healing environments to improve patient outcomes.  modern health care facilities are extremely complex and critical environments with many work treatment, and living spaces, essential mechanical systems and services, and a broad range of medical technologies where caring and healing are meant to take place.  Health care users expect the infrastructure to be safe, responsive, reliable, and effective.  First published in 2011, CSA Z8000 was developed as a tool to weave all of these interrelated yet disparate components together into a comprehensive Standard to ensure that the safety, operational efficiency, and impacts to the physical environment and atmosphere only contribute positively to patient outcomes.  since then, research has been conducted to link some of the key design elements in Z8000 (single patient rooms, proper disposal waste, hand hygiene sinks, and requirements for airborne isolation rooms to have anterooms) with a reduction in infection rates and an improvement in hand hygiene compliance among staff, with a pending research project on the optimum faucet flowrate for hand hygiene.  The presentation will describe the rationale for updating original requirements with evidence-based expanded guidance to address advances in technology and changes in service delivery models over the past decade, including a new section on long-term care facilities, substantial revisions to ambulatory care and operative procedures to better align design requirements with the level of risk, and a thorough updating requirements from an infection prevention and control perspective.

In this webinar the speakers will introduce different procurement models used in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, talk about the criteria for selecting a procurement model, and discuss the benefits and challenges of implementing each of the introduced models in the North American AEC industry. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), which has become the subject of great interest in recent years and is believed by many to have the potential to revolutionize the practices and project outcomes in this industry will be one of the procurement models covered in this presentation.