ASHRAE Journal - September 2014 - 90

COLUMN DATA CENTERS

devices, computational analysis techniques and communication media to aid health care professionals and
patients manage illnesses and health risks, as well as promote health and well-being. Digital healthcare is a multidisciplinary domain which involves many stakeholders,
including clinicians, researchers and scientists with a wide
range of expertise in health care, engineering, social sciences, public health, health economics and management."
The definition provides some context on the massive depth and breadth of digital healthcare topic. Also,
it provides some insight into why the integration of
mechanical, electrical, and electronic/digital technology
represents the right approach and that consideration
must be given for a load that may vary greatly over time.
There is plenty of content available concerning electronic medical records (EMR), smartphone apps, etc. but
very little has been published on how to plan and design
the mechanical, electrical, and technology systems for
digital health-care facilities.
To start the process of discovering/understanding the
digital impact and interoperability with the mechanical
and electrical, it is helpful to classify the digital equipment within a health-care facility into portable and
stationary. Often, the portable equipment comes from a
variety of sources including personal and hospital:
Personal (patient's and their family): smartphones, iPads,
Electronic books, electronic games, DVD players, etc.
Personal (medical staff): smartphones, medical equipment, laptops, pagers, etc.
Hospital (wireless): Desktop computers, laptops, pagers, RFID (tracking of supplies), telemetry (tracking of
patients), ID badges (tracking of staff), etc.
Hospital (plug powered): desktop computers, anesthesia
carts, ultrasound, crash carts (code blue/resuscitation),
defibrillators, ventilators, blood pressure machine, portable C-arm (X-ray), patient bed, dialysis machines, etc.
It is important to identify the portable equipment's
power needs. Portable equipment might need a local or
central charging means. In the case of the patient, there
is an increasing trend for them to have one or more digital devices and want to keep them charged.
Most engineers prefer specifics and precision but
exclusively applying that approach in the digital age is
too narrow minded. The approach creates too much
risk of mechanical and electrical system capacity mismatches (failing sometime during their lifetime to meet
the capacity needs). This capacity mismatch could just
as easily be significant and small. One way to obtain a
90

ASHRAE JOURNAL

ashrae.org

SEPTEM BER 2014

better "sense for the load" both now and the future is to
use the following multi-step process.
Step 1: Identify all possible portable and stationary
equipment per room, per department, and per floor
Step 2: Determine the minimum and maximum loads
per piece of equipment (now and future)
Step 3: Determine minimum, average, and maximum
equipment concurrent occupancy per room, per department, and per floor
Step 4: Identify the requirements for each piece of
equipment (size and quality of mechanical and electrical
support as well both wired and wireless network needs)
Typically, people are reluctant to commit; especially when
there is uncertainty. The mechanical/electrical/electronic
or digital technology integrator should ask for minimum
and maximum to avoid the reluctance about a single
number. To reduce the reluctance further, encourage the
resource/source to widen the range until there is no longer
any reluctance to provide a suitable range of values.

Infrastructure
Due to the amount of change across the life cycle of the
physical assets, often it is valuable to use a distributed
infrastructure including mechanical, electrical, and
electronic or digital technology. This approach makes
change more localized and less disruptive.
Many old hospitals use a more reactive infrastructure
design model, exclusively focused on the current project
challenges and not the long-term goals. It could be argued
that the addition of wired and wireless networks in conjunction with routers, gateways, controllers, storage, etc.
amplify the need to refocus. This refocus should be on a
more distributed and modular implementation strategy.
Although rarely can this approach be funded as a
separate project, developing a master plan and focusing
every subsequent project to be in alignment with that
master plan is a reasonable and affordable approach.
For sustainable mechanical/electrical/electronic or
digital technology to achieve full life-cycle value, infrastructure master planning is crucial.

Conclusion
In a digital revolution, electronic or digital technology
becomes a critical part of a hospital's operating system
(i.e., how the hospital runs). This makes the integration of mechanical, electrical, and electronic or digital
technology critical to the facility planning, design, and
ultimately its success as a business.

ASHRAE Journal - September 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ASHRAE Journal - September 2014