At Bry-Air, Inc., we have over 50 years of experience providing advanced environmental control systems to industrial and commercial customers with critical quality requirements. One area where proper indoor air quality is absolutely essential is in hospitals and other healthcare settings.
Effective dehumidification solutions can greatly improve air quality in these facilities, leading to enhanced infection control, fewer equipment failures, and better overall health outcomes. In this article, we’ll explore the impact of humidity on your hospital environments, how dehumidification works, and the multitude of benefits it provides across all of your hospital areas.
The Impact of Humidity in Your Hospitals
Maintaining strict humidity control is crucial in your hospitals. Elevated humidity levels greater than 60% relative humidity (RH) foster biological growth, cause moisture condensation on surfaces, and facilitate the survival of dangerous pathogens in the environment. Growth of mold and bacteria on your hospital walls, equipment, and infrastructure materials is associated with negative effects on patients and staff including allergies, asthma exacerbation, respiratory concerns, and hospital-acquired infections.
High humidity and resulting condensation also leads to premature breakdown and corrosion of your medical equipment and electronics. Sensitive imaging machines like MRI scanners can experience full operational failure when exposed to condensation from humidity. This enormously impacts hospital function and continuity of care for patients.
How Dehumidifiers Improve Your Hospital Indoor Air Quality
Humidity control is achieved in hospitals through actively managing moisture levels using specialized dehumidification equipment. These units remove excess moisture from the air through refrigeration or desiccant drying methods, controlling indoor humidity within the optimal 40 – 60% RH range recommended in most modern healthcare HVAC design guidelines.
By regulating moisture to appropriate levels, dehumidifiers provide hospitals and patients with measurable clinical benefits:
Infection Control and Prevention
Uncontrolled humidity enables pathogenic mold growth on surfaces which puts immunocompromised patients at infection risk. It also allows bacteria levels to rise to dangerous levels. Maintaining RH below 60% inhibits this biological amplification, significantly reducing health hazards.
Medical Equipment Protection
Condensation from excess moisture dripping into expensive clinical environments causes corrosion and electronics failure in sensitive medical equipment. Consistent dehumidification eliminates this condensation hazard, avoiding replacement costs and operational downtime.
Optimized Disinfectant Efficacy
Many accelerated hydrogen peroxide and other leading hospital disinfectants work optimally at a specific humidity range around 50% RH. Tight humidity control through dehumidification ensures surfaces stay within the ideal antiseptic humidity range for maximum pathogen killing potency.
Enhanced Patient Comfort
Proper moisture removal maintains comfortable environmental temperature conditions leading to improved patient perceptions of care and quicker recovery times.
In total, by actively regulating indoor moisture levels, our company’s specialized dehumidifiers foster measurably healthier indoor air quality across all hospital spaces.
Bry-Air Dehumidification Solutions for Hospital Environments
Bry-Air offers customized dehumidification systems to meet the unique needs of every hospital department. With over 50 years of experience providing environmental control solutions specifically for healthcare facilities, we have the specialized technologies to properly regulate humidity in your sensitive clinical spaces.
Desiccant Dehumidifier Systems
Our rugged desiccant systems use advanced rotor technology to continuously absorb moisture down to remarkably low dew points ideal for sensitive hospital departments.
Refrigerant Medical Dehumidifiers
For less critical humidity control applications, Bry-Air refrigerant dehumidifiers use conventional cooled coils to remove excess indoor humidity.
Integrated Dehumidification Packages
We engineer complete humidity control packages integrating dehumidification equipment, duct-work, controls, air handlers, and heat recovery to construct a custom solution meeting your facility’s needs.
Rugged Industrial Dehumidifiers
For non-clinical hospital spaces like equipment rooms with less stringent requirements, we provide reliable and durable industrial dehumidification units.
Proactive Maintenance Contracts
Our nationwide team of experienced technicians can maintain, thoroughly sanitize, repair, and service your existing humidity control assets to maximize uptime and operational longevity.
Need Help Dehumidifying Your Hospital?
With over five decades solely focused on technologically advanced humidity and moisture control, the dehumidification experts at Bry-Air have the proven solution for your hospital’s unique air quality needs. Contact us today to discuss implementing a tailored whole-building dehumidification system across your healthcare campus!
Frequently Asked Hospital Dehumidification Questions
What is the optimal humidity range for a hospital?
The majority of healthcare engineering sources recommend maintaining hospital humidity between 40 – 60% relative humidity to prevent microbial amplification and moisture condensation while facilitating optimal disinfectant efficacy.
Which of my hospital spaces need active humidity control?
Any sensitive clinical environment like operating rooms, sterile processing areas, isolation wards, pharmacies, laboratories, imaging equipment rooms, and general inpatient care areas require dedicated dehumidification equipment to nurture healthy indoor air quality.
Can you improve humidity issues in my older hospitals?
Absolutely. For facilities struggling with existing infrastructure humidity control, we conduct a full site assessment followed by data-driven dehumidifier retrofit recommendations tailored to your unique building attributes and clinical spaces.
