The health care environment is continually changing and evolving to meet the needs of their patients. To make these changes safe and efficient, institutions must come up with policies and procedures to allow the construction projects to take place, while not interfering with the daily activities and functions of the institution. The business specialty that I chose is infection control in the Healthcare Environment. This topic has always been interesting to me because I have been in the health care construction industry my entire life. Also, I have slowly observed the changes that have been taking place.
Infection control has been around for over one-hundred years. It was not until the mid 1980s that contractors began using this practice on the job sites. There are certain risks associated with renovating or expanding a hospital or nursing home. These risks range from discomfort to a spread of airborne contaminates such as, Aspergillus, which is a type of mold. To greatly minimize these risks, infection control relies heavily on isolation. This is to ensure that the contaminated air inside the construction area is not allowed to enter patient occupied space. Many of the procedures that are presently used come from the asbestos abatement industry. Over the years, this industry has been able to create methods of constructing physical barriers between occupied spaces and construction. These barriers can range from simple six millimeter plastic sheeting to a hard partition made out of fire rated sheetrock, which is sealed at all penetrations. Also, these sites must include the use of a High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filtered blowers, which are used to create a negative pressure differential between the occupied space and the construction area. This pressure creates an air flow from the clean occupied space through the construction site exhausting to the outdoors.
The specialty of infection control has been changing rapidly in the past eight...