IFHE NEWS VIEWPOINT
Coronavirus emergency – healthcare engineers’ key role highlighted
In times of healthcare crisis – as the world is experiencing with the current coronavirus outbreak – it is the task of the healthcare engineer ‘to identify, build, and maintain new areas to house intensive and sub-intensive care units’. Giving her own personal viewpoint, Daniela Pedrini, President of Italian IFHE member country organisation, SIAIS, the Italian Society of Architecture and Engineering for Healthcare, here argues that it is such specialist personnel’s detailed and expert knowledge of the hospital environment that enables estates and facilities teams to direct and guide the heads of clinical departments in their decisions ‘towards faster, more feasible solutions’.
In the war against the coronavirus, there are two advanced frontlines currently fighting side by side; these frontlines have been established by those ‘in the trenches’ – the doctors, nurses, and other clinicians treating patients against a particularly indiscriminate and, in some cases, sadly fatal, virus, and those who, meticulously, but rapidly, prepare those trenches – equally hard-working and dedicated, but often ‘unsung’, estates and facilities personnel. The latter are the individuals and teams who, in practice, identify and build, or organise the construction or allocation of, new areas for intensive and sub-intensive care units. This is a task they must accomplish in full compliance with the relevant technical guidance and regulations, while ensuring that the chosen treatment locations are clinically fit for purpose – whether new beds and equipment are set up in currently un- or under-utilised wards, or in entirely new accommodation. With daily self-sacrifice and commitment, years of experience and professional expertise, and their ‘inside knowledge’ of their healthcare facilities’ buildings, coupled with familiarity with the latest healthcare technology, healthcare engineers, architects, and healthcare technicians have been working extremely effectively alongside a range of NHS clinical and other staff to successfully create areas where patients can get the best possible support and care in what has, for some, become a fight for survival. With additional help from other professionals, such estates and facilities teams have been quietly getting on with managing the technical/ engineering aspects of the operation of both large hospitals, and smaller, more local healthcare facilities, and, in the process, are making an indispensable contribution to the provision of first-class patient care. The contribution of healthcare engineering professionals is so effective and impactful due to their intimate and unrivalled knowledge of the hospital environment.
Daniela Pedrini.
Congress postponed even before imposition of travel veto
SIAIS, which was due to host what would have been this year’s largest global conference for this sector in Rome this month (see page 25), in fact postponed the congress to another date before the Italian Government’s travel restrictions were issued. Indeed both the Government and SIAIS continue to liaise with regional coordinators for constant feedback on the situation, which continues to be monitored virtually. The feedback and information received is used to inform activity in the currently ‘non-critical’ regions, to ensure that they are well-prepared to deal with any emergency situations arising from the current coronavirus outbreak. The story doesn’t, however, end there;
the engineers, architects, and healthcare technicians, who travel back and forth from their stronghold to the trenches and the frontline where the clinicians are working, are also entrusted with the ongoing task of checking and verifying the efficient, safe operation of all the equipment being used to deliver treatment, and – especially at such a critical point – the medical equipment in intensive care units. For example, the hospital’s air-conditioning systems must guarantee optimal conditions for the microclimate, for air exchange, and for air purity, while all electrically powered equipment needs to be operating efficiently and continuously, ensuring the safety of patients and medical staff alike. Equally, medical gas systems (oxygen, medical air, and vacuum, etc.) must continue to operate seamlessly and safely in compliance with current norms and legislation. It is thus abundantly clear – at this momentous time for world healthcare – that the role and expertise of healthcare engineers, architects, and other associated professionals, is indispensable – both to the professionals entrusted with the general management of patient health and safety, and to the medical staff looking after patients ‘on the frontline’. Indeed while the professionalism, dedication, and expertise of healthcare estates management/healthcare engineering personnel is of fundamental importance when healthcare facilities are running routinely, faced with a devastating pandemic, such capabilities and expertise take on even greater significance in ensuring that those battling COVID-19 can be effectively looked after and given the optimal chance of recovery, in a treatment environment which – despite space constraints – is conducive to first-class 21st-century care.
For technical information, please contact: S.I.A.I.S. Technical Secretariat +39.393.9609133
May 2020 Health Estate Journal 27
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