Source avec lien : ASHE, 2021.
Au cours des dernières décennies, l’incertitude s’est accrue quant au code ou à la norme à appliquer pour le fonctionnement des systèmes de ventilation des établissements de santé. Bien que la norme ASHRAE/ASHE 170-2021, Ventilation of Health Care Facilities, soit considérée comme la norme de l’industrie pour la conception de la ventilation des établissements de santé au fil des ans, elle est aussi devenue involontairement une norme opérationnelle « de facto » lorsqu’elle est déclarée par le personnel de l’établissement comme la norme selon laquelle il entretient et fait fonctionner ses systèmes CVC. Bien que cette pratique puisse être acceptable, elle crée malheureusement trois problèmes majeurs : La norme est développée strictement comme une norme de conception, et les plages établies dans la norme sont destinées à des fins de conception et ne sont pas destinées à être des plages opérationnelles.
Over the last few decades there has been an increasing uncertainty regarding the proper code or standard to apply to the operations of health care ventilation systems. While ASHRAE/ASHE Standard 170-2021, Ventilation of Health Care Facilities, is noted as the industry standard for the design of health care ventilation over the years, it also has unwittingly become a “de facto” operational standard when it is declared by facility personnel as the standard by which they maintain and operate their HVAC systems. While this can be an acceptable practice it unfortunately creates three major issues: The standard is developed strictly as a design standard, and the ranges established in the standard are intended for design purposes and are not intended as operational ranges. While the best designed HVAC system is intended to be able to meet the ranges within Standard 170 there are always excursions that occur. Determining how to apply the code/standard in effect at the time of design/construction can be difficult especially when specifically trying to apply it to a portion of or a single system that is associated with multiple systems. Due to these issues the American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE) of the American Hospital Association has encouraged health care organizations to develop facility specific HVAC management plans to detail the facility’s operational policy and procedures. While these have been successfully implemented in many organizations there have still been occurrences where authorities having jurisdiction have been hesitant to accept these management plans.