Isolation Room Design

Speaker  Jessica Fullerton, MSc, CIC, Construction Lead – Infection Prevention and Control, The Ottawa Hospital; Chair, CSA Z317.13 Infection control during construction, renovation or maintenance of health care facilities

Speaker  Nick Stark, PEng, CED, LEED AP, ICD.D, Vice President, H.H. Angus & Associates Limited Consulting Engineers; Chair, CSA Z317.2 Special requirements for HVAC systems in health care facilities

This presentation will review the history of airborne isolation room design in Canada leading up to current requirements and room design criteria. The unique aspects of airborne isolation rooms (AIR), protective environment rooms (PER) and combination AIR/PER will be presented with reference to Codes and Standards. Specific requirements such as anterooms, airflow and pressure, controls, filtration and redundancy will be discussed. The role that airborne isolation rooms and associated HVAC systems play in pandemic planning and catastrophic event management will be covered. The impact of specific design elements, as well as operations and maintenance considerations in servicing and maintaining these spaces will also be presented.