{"id":11398,"date":"2015-09-30T11:19:30","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.constructionspecifier.com\/?p=11398"},"modified":"2015-09-30T11:19:58","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:19:58","slug":"it-for-healthcare-the-importance-of-low-voltage-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.constructionspecifier.com\/it-for-healthcare-the-importance-of-low-voltage-infrastructure\/","title":{"rendered":"IT for Healthcare: The importance of low-voltage infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"
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All photos \u00a9 Peter Cane Photography<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Matt Odell, RCDD
\n<\/strong>Progressive healthcare organizations realize the vital role of their facilities\u2019 low-voltage information technology (IT) infrastructure and have taken a holistic view of the many systems needed. This is especially important during new construction or renovation projects to ensure nothing is compromised during the process. Inefficient design and deployment practices result in added costs and project schedule delays; they may also contribute to the creation of \u2018technology silos\u2019 that reduce or preclude the infrastructure\u2019s ability to support network convergence and new technologies in the future.<\/p>\n

The healthcare industry has become one of the biggest drivers of Internet Protocol (IP) convergence, expanding beyond digital patient records and administrative needs to include critical applications such as electronic video surveillance, access control, patient monitoring, and equipment tracking. Further, these applications are only the tip of the iceberg for IP explosion\u2014IT touches every department across the healthcare enterprise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result of the proliferation of technology systems within hospitals, more extensive planning has become crucial to allow for their proper installation. Even more challenging, these systems constantly change and evolve as technology advances. This means planning must provide flexibility to allow for the quick progress of technology. Just as important to effectively support organizational goals for improved patient satisfaction scores, healthcare systems must also incorporate an innovative wireless strategy that includes a robust and scalable infrastructure and expansive, reliable wireless coverage.<\/p>\n

While architects, specifiers, and other design construction professionals are not the end users of hospital automation systems, they must understand them to ensure the hospital is equipped with the right material transport systems. It is critical they work with the end-user to help analyze needs, evaluate designs, and address current and future workflow requirements\u2014ensuring the installed IT infrastructure system increases efficiency and enhances the patient experience.<\/p>\n

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Typical patient-room technologies\u2014not all of the cutting-edge equipment in healthcare settings are medical in nature. Many involve the hidden information technology (IT) infrastructure that provides the backbone for communication, security, and safety.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Product selection can reduce costs
\n<\/strong>During new construction or renovation, healthcare facility owners and managers face a combination of economic pressures and compressed schedules that can increase the costs of installation and retrofits. The careful selection of electrical infrastructure products has the potential to greatly benefit the entire project timeline.<\/p>\n

The use of products and systems that have \u2018designed-in\u2019 productivity offer numerous benefits throughout the life of a building project. Products and integrated systems offer time savings in the design, assembly, and installation of the electrical and cabling infrastructure<\/a>. Installation is simpler, so there are fewer errors and delays due to re-work. After initial construction, plug-and-play capabilities make it easy to accommodate moves, additions, and changes.<\/p>\n

Prewired raceways
\n<\/em>Armored cable (Type AC) and metal-clad cable (Type MC) provide a fast and efficient way of wiring both new construction and remodeling work. Their flexible metal armor provides mechanical protection of the electrical conductors while enabling them to bend around corners. The cables are pre-wired at the factory, eliminating the need to pull conductors into a raceway. Some of the key benefits for the healthcare industry are the ease of installation, the variety of profiles, capacities and fabrication options available, and the ease of making moves, additions, and changes to existing installations as the needs for services or spaces change.<\/p>\n

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Patient-room nurse-call system components represent only a tiny component of the electrical systems drawing on Internet Protocol (IP) convergence.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Modular wiring systems
\n<\/em>A rapid and easily installed modular distribution system prefabricated offsite, these systems are essentially the circuit lines of a traditional scheme. They allow for a complete installation\u2014from the pre-wired plug in distribution board (all wired internally) to the furthest point of a circuit\u2014by simply connecting the system components together, without need for any hardwired connections. One of the key benefits of modular wiring systems is the speed of installation.<\/p>\n

Wire-mesh cable trays with pre-assembled supports
\n<\/em>This assembly allows for overhead or under floor cable routing and enables better airflow than solid conduit.<\/p>\n

Pre-fabricated wiring systems
\n<\/em>This is an easily installed modular distribution system that is more efficiently prefabricated off-site in a controlled environment. A pre-fabricated wiring system minimizes the number of hard connections that need to be made, saves time and labor, and increases efficiency. Additionally, it is a flexible system that uses factory-manufactured components that clip together and eliminate the tedious and repetitive work of installing pipe, pulling wires, cutting, stripping, and screwing wire nuts.<\/p>\n

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A multi-year, $850 million expansion of the Inova Fairfax Medical Campus is the largest building project in the nonprofit health organization\u2019s history. Its Inova Women\u2019s Hospital\/Inova Children\u2019s Hospital (IWHICH) will rely on state-of-the-art low-voltage IT infrastructure to assist both patients and staff.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Healthcare cabling standards
\n<\/strong>There is a major challenge to install or upgrade the cable plant in a healthcare environment that is always operating, but the costs are often higher for healthcare facilities that close. In fact, the costs to re-cable a live hospital can be up to five times higher than the costs of cabling a new healthcare facility.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest issues for infrastructure design and deployment has been the lack of consistent cabling practices in today\u2019s healthcare facilities. The impact of multiple IP technologies, combined with various integrated cabling systems, has caused the information and communications technology (ICT) industry to create consortiums of infrastructure manufacturers, healthcare IT professionals, network designers, and contractors to collaborate on creating documents for best cabling practices.<\/p>\n

Over the last four years, these groups, through standards bodies such as the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and Building Industry Consulting Service International (BICSI), have published two standard documents that provide recommendations for best cabling practices in the healthcare environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cabling requirements in healthcare facilities can be much more complex than a standard commercial building or office space, which are covered by TIA 568, Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling <\/em>Standards<\/em>. Consequently, TIA 1179, Healthcare <\/em>Facility Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard<\/em>, was created to address the unique requirements of healthcare environments, recognizing their work areas to be fundamentally different than those within a typical office facility.<\/p>\n

Part of that standard defines and differentiates workstation densities for 11 categories found in a healthcare environment<\/a>, such as operating rooms as high-density, patient services as medium, and waiting rooms as low. The TIA-1179 standard specifies cabling, topologies, and cabling distances to support a wide range of healthcare facilities and systems.<\/p>\n

According to TIA, the telecommunications cabling specified is intended to support a wide range of clinical and non-clinical systems (e.g.<\/em> radio-frequency identification [RFID], building automation systems [BAS], security management, and pharmaceutical inventory), particularly those which utilize or can utilize IP-based infrastructure. This includes standard IP-based systems as well as low-voltage systems such as lighting control, HVAC, nurse call, and access control that can be run over structured cabling.<\/p>\n

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Patient shower\/bathroom pull-string alarm for a hospital\u2019s nurse-call system\u2014thought must be given to power sources.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Choosing designers and integrating systems
\n<\/strong>Selecting a low-voltage systems designer should be a careful decision, but it can be done on the same basis on which other traditional design-team members such as architects, engineers, and interior designers are selected. One should:<\/p>\n