MEDICAL GASES


Table 2. An assessment of the most common therapies involving medical air. Therapy


Typical duration


Aerosol drug delivery High flow therapy


Mechanical ventilation


Neonatal isolette environment control Infant resuscitation General anaesthesia Hyperbaric therapy***


***


Short Long Long Long Short Long Short


No No No No No No No


*While some devices monitor oxygen content, none monitor all USP chemical elements **Some high flow therapy devices use room air while others use piped medical air


Hyperbaric therapy is often thought to involve oxygen alone. However, most therapies involve breathable air and in many cases medical air is employed. If a stand alone compressor system is used for hyperbaric chambers. Consideration should be given to quality control and means for off-spec prevention pursuant to the quality formula referenced in CSA Z275.1, Hyperbaric facilities.


Note: Typically occupational health literature references long term exposure to be of eight hours or more, and these references apply to healthy people. For the purposes of this risk assessment, we define two hours or more as long term since medical air is used to treat people with a respiratory ailment.


required to ensure the quality of medical air entering the pipeline meets the clinical, regulatory and patient safety standards. With a high likelihood that a quality


breach will occur wherever medical air is made on site, and knowing there are health effects if exposed to the chemical contaminants listed in the USP formula, the authors believe the determining risk factor is potential for harmful exposure.


Where the potential is high, continuous chemical analysis and automatic means for off-spec prevention are recommended. Generally these would be sites with a labour and delivery department, active operating rooms or intensive care units employing mechanical ventilation protocols involving centrally piped medical air. Where potential for harmful exposure


is low, the frequency of monitoring and method of off-spec prevention should be site determined. Such sites are also likely to be low


volume dispensers, in which case it may be financially prudent to transfer the burden of quality control to a commercial producer and feed a pipeline with high pressure medical air USP cylinders.


Device alarms*


Patient alert


Possible Possible


Unlikely to no No No No No


Potential for harmful exposure


Low


Low-high** High High Low High High


IFHE


IFHEDigest Providing insights into the vast field of healthcare engineering and facility management 86 IFHE DIGEST 2018


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88