CARBON AND EMISSION REDUCTION
and a consultancy called SRO Innovation, which it had collaborated with for several years. This ecosystem also included BIM and digital modelling specialists who would offer their expertise. We then carried out 6-12 months of investigative works,
Dave Lister
Dave Lister is a Healthcare Solutions specialist at IAconnects, with over three decades of experience in digital enablement, specification, and installation, across the built environment. He is a respected authority in robust systems integration, digital transformation, industrial automation, and IoT application engineering. Before joining
IAconnects, he was Divisional manager for Building Automation at Beckhoff Automation UK. His leadership and innovative approach were instrumental in driving the company’s success in delivering complex projects in ‘traditionally challenging verticals’ such as aviation, national infrastructure, and healthcare.
He has also served as an independent advisor to companies developing digital and automation strategies for the NHS Hospital of the future, where he is responsible for designing and implementing converged control systems for large- scale healthcare projects. In his current role he helps deliver effective, sustainable monitoring and control solutions tailored to healthcare facilities’ current and future needs. IAconnects specialises
in IoT system integration, providing ‘smart monitoring solutions’ to help businesses cut costs, stay compliant, improve operating efficiency, and support sustainability.
identifying areas where we thought optimisation could be achieved, and that we could monitor. This step was crucial for understanding the parameters that would influence the workings of the theatre environment. We started by looking at the BMS and unpacking a range of things: what metering was in place, what air quality metrics the hospital used, how the BMS operated, how it monitors air pressure and filtering, and more. This deep dive was important, and, once we’d identified the gaps, we could start looking at what sensor technology we could deploy to fill these. As expected, not much data was available from the BMS, and what we did have was unreliable, so the list of sensor technologies required increased immensely.
Varying degrees of connectivity There are 31 operating theatres inside St George’s, which have been delivered and grown over 30+ years with various types of technology. These all have varying degrees of connectivity and data, so even if we could access it, this information probably wouldn’t have been all that useful. Phase one of the project was about establishing connectivity with the existing BMS, to establish a collaborative network, with the new technology acting as a digital overlay. This meant that any actions from what the sensors were monitoring would trigger a change in the BMS, ideally without human intervention. Consequently, establishing safe connectivity meant engaging with the Trust’s IT team and identifying a suitable network. We then looked at wireless technologies, eventually providing over 500 wired and wireless sensing devices that ran using a Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) protocol. Again, this required approval from ‘IT’, and proof that the technology wouldn’t interfere with anything clinical on site. We also had to establish network points, ensuring connectivity via a virtual local area network (VLAN). From the start, the project enjoyed clinical engagement,
which was crucial. As well as project managers and other built environment stakeholders, we had regular input from clinicians, surgeons, nursing leads, infection control, and anaesthesia — the list is almost endless. Their insights were key when looking at what metrics to capture using the wireless sensor technology. For
Data aggregation in use.
example, we didn’t realise that some procedures, like hip replacements, are optimised for certain temperatures and conditions. Naturally, this would cause an inconsistency in readings across the hospital, so we needed to be aware.
Trusted advisors “The team at IAconnects Technology have become trusted advisors and suppliers in support of the St George’s Hospital Digital Roadmap,” said David Roskams, Building Your Future Hospitals lead for Digital Transformation, Estates and Facilities Division, at St George’s Hospital. “IAconnects’ approach is always pragmatic, and – at every step - it considers the bigger picture. It operates comfortably in all aspects of what is a highly complex business model, considering not only digital and asset management challenges, but adding value to clinical, EFM, and business intelligence working groups.” With the LoRaWAN sensors installed, the hospital’s team now had over 250 data points from the BMS, providing the user interface and analytics for eleven Trust stakeholders. Captured datasets included temperature, humidity, CO2
, TVOC (Total Volatile Organic
Compounds), illuminance (Lux), air pressure, and air change rates. Data was also collected on occupancy, which was a trigger for the BMS Set Back and Ramp Up. Meanwhile, power was monitored using a combination of wireless current transformers and BMS-derived data. Our team ensured that any data captured would be available to the NHS and the Academic Industry Partnership (AIP) at Loughborough University. This meant that the University’s Data Science team could take any or all of the sensor data and analyse the information from the operating theatres. We achieved this accessibility by running a middleware platform, MobiusFlow, that collects,
Each year, over 130,000 operations are performed at St George’s Hospital on patients from across the South of England.
74 Health Estate Journal May 2025
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