Indoor Environmental Quality in Operating Rooms: An European Standards Review with Regard to Romanian Guidelines

AbstractOperating Rooms require efficient Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning systems to secure the highly demanding indoor environmental quality for patients and medical staff. In this article we are passing in review the main European Standards on design, indoor thermal conditions, and operation, of Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning systems for Operating Rooms. The commonly encountered problems on real sites include insufficient indoor air exchange, poor control on indoor thermal conditions, ventilation system operation and poor operation. The principal conclusion is that there is a lack of specifications and uniformity in the existing standards, which, in most of the cases, do not impose very strict values as it would be advisable for this kind of indoor environment. This applies to both International and Romanian standards. In conclusion, there is needed a new re-evaluation on the standards regarding indoor air quality domain in hospitals. This approach should be based on existing standards built around previous experience and benefit from nowadays survey studies that underline on-site problems. This will lead to improved, high quality medical units with low airborne infection rates, where the environment will be comfortable for both, patients and medical staff