Procedure room innovation during the COVID-19 crisis: Protecting healthcare workers while learning from history

The impact of the recent pandemic on healthcare workers highlights the need to improve the working environment in hospitals. This is especially true in procedural rooms such as the operating and delivery rooms, which inherently require extended exposure to the virus, allows no social distancing, and generates aerosolized virus into the room through the use of the equipment. While reviewing the history of the development of the current Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Systems (HVAC), we identified inadequacies in the architecture and regulations of the system that resulted in insufficient protection during the current pandemic. Thus, we worked with building/facilities management, the operating room and nursing staff, and learned from research on airplane cabin air circulation to modify HVAC systems to address this issue. The modification includes calculating and implementing appropriate air changes per hour of the HVAC system. Modifying the existing system allows sufficient exchange of air within the procedure room to reduce the amount of exposure to viruses which results in safer working environments for healthcare workers. In the future, there will continue to be more pandemics, thus it is important to start creating safer working environments now, such as revisiting the hospital architecture and HVAC system, so that they can be improved upon and so that we are more prepared for the future.