FEATURE ARTICLES

With growing demand for healthcare services, and acutely limited resources, tracking the location of hospital beds and mattresses with RFID can see significant efficiency gains and improvements in patient safety. So says the RFID product manager for Healthcare at RFiD Discovery, who provides an overview of the available technologies.

A new 344-bedded hospital opened late last year just outside Dumfries, jointly designed by architectural practices Ryder Architecture and NBBJ, was conceived as a ‘garden hospital’, with a design focused on light and landscape made possible by its rural setting. Wards are surrounded by garden spaces, some of which play an integral part in therapeutic practice.

The UK and Eire distributor of a Norwegian-developed vacuum drainage technology that reportedly consumes one-sixth to one-eighth the volume of water used during flushing of traditional ‘gravity’ toilets, sets out this and the technology’s other practical and cost-saving benefits.

HEJ’s editor spoke to former chairman of the IHEEM Publications Committee, Amos Millington, about his engineering career – which began with an apprenticeship at legendary British aviation manufacturer, de Havilland, some of his most memorable experiences, and the people he met along the way.

June’s Hospital Innovations 2018 event saw the year’s second IHEEM roundtable focus on NHS apprenticeships, with a particular emphasis on ongoing work to establish a national engineering apprenticeship for healthcare engineers

In an article first published in Australian magazine, Healthcare Facilities, a mineral insulated cable specialist discusses the potential consequences should the electrical wiring systems that connect vital fire safety systems fail during a fire, and actions to take to minimise the risk.

Bill Algeo, a building technologist at Health Sciences Centre, Winnipeg, explains how the HSC’s Facility Management Department played a key role in providing input and expertise for a redevelopment project that is seeing the creation of a new Women’s Hospital in the Canadian city, located in the state of Manitoba.

HEJ reports on the presentation of the Lord Carter Award for 2018, and the conferring of ‘Highly Commended’ certificates to two ‘runners-up’, at the recent Hospital Innovations 2018 event in London.

Dave Lancaster, Applications specialist (Building Services) from plumbing, heating, cooling, and infrastructure specialist, Uponor, discusses the risk of Legionella in hospital water systems, and the ways in which that risk can be addressed through design best practice and pipe specification.

Howorth Air Technology will still be best-known to many in healthcare as the company which, working with worldrenowned orthopaedic surgeon, Sir John Charnley, in the early 1960s, developed the world’s first ultraclean surgical enclosure. Today, sales of its Exflow UCV canopy system remain strong, but the company now offers an ever broader range of complementary, and increasingly ‘connected’, operating theatre and ITU products.

With the percutaneous devices used in interventional radiology departments becoming ever more complex, and more and more minimally invasive procedures being undertaken in conventional operating theatres, a new ‘breed’ of so-called ‘hybrid’ theatres has emerged, and is now a feature of many hospitals worldwide. A look at the optimal design of such theatres.

A look at a new Centre of Wellbeing designed by architects, 3DReid, for the Thistle Foundation, an Edinburghbased charitable organisation that supports disabled people to live independently, and those with long-term conditions to better manage their lives.

Fire safety is a huge concern for hospitals, which rely on running smoothly to keep waiting times to a minimum and ensure that patients, staff, and visitors, are safe. However, as such facilities continue to evolve, they can face a growing number of new fire safety challenges, with advances in technology and demand for better services placing a heavy reliance on cables to keep equipment and their supporting infrastructure running safely. Paul Gretton, lead marketing manager – Cable Management, at Legrand UK & Ireland, explains why using effective and future-proof firestopping in healthcare environments is crucial.

Effective use of technology can significantly impact the design and day-to-day running of NHS estates, with the power to make buildings more efficient, create income generation opportunities, and help ‘future-proof’ the estate long-term

Senior estates and facilities staff from the NHS Estates and Facilities Efficiency and Productivity Division at NHSI led a well-attended seminar on workforce planning in Birmingham in April. The event brought together senior healthcare estates directors from over 30 NHS Trusts, and representatives of IHEEM, HefmA, and IPEM, to discuss key succession and skills gap issues facing the sector.

The COBS personal security range of products is now available from Atus Systems, strengthening its range of both personal and staff security solutions.

The head of Manufacturing and Innovation at offsite specialist, The McAvoy Group, looks at the latest techniques for digitising construction, and at ‘how the new technology is taking offsite construction to the next level’.

Clean, hot water is vital to combating infections in hospitals, but when the water supply itself is at risk, what are the options? Teal Patents, which specialises in providing hot water handwashing facilities without mains water supply or drainage, explains how to maintain high hand hygiene standards when the water supply has been compromised.

Steve Hunt, managing director of Steven A Hunt & Associates, discusses the need for hospitals and industry experts to stay up-to-date with technology to help tackle the issue of Legionella developing in ‘ill-equipped’ domestic water systems.

Three years after moving into a considerably larger and more modern Bournemouth office and factory complex, wireless nurse call specialist, Courtney-Thorne, is enjoying the benefits, and is increasingly focusing on making its systems ‘future-proof’.