For facility managers (FMs) in healthcare facilities helping prevent healthcare-associated infections is of high priority. Among the areas of primary concern to FMs in managing this problem is air pressure and airflow, according to an article on the FacilitiesNet website.

Three main areas of an FM's core competencies are directly related to infection control effectiveness: air filtration and room pressure relationships, cleaning and housekeeping, and waste management and disposal, the article said.

"The most important thing about infection control is air flow," said Bert Gumeringer, assistant vice president for facility operations at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. "Do you have the right exchange rates? Is the pressure negative when it needs to be negative and positive when it needs to be positive?"

Isolation rooms for patients with very infectious diseases — like tuberculosis and Ebola — must be negatively pressured to prevent air (and airborne pathogens) from escaping and infecting others. Conversely, said Gumeringer, patients who are immune-compromised must be placed in rooms with positive pressure to keep contaminants away. 

Read the article.