Air conditioning in hospitals and operating rooms: when climate is part of the treatment

In a hospital, air conditioning does far more than provide comfort. It controls infection, maintains the pressures that protect critical areas, regulates humidity for patient wellbeing and filters the air entering an operating room while someone is being operated on. It is, literally, part of the clinical safety environment.

Operating rooms are the extreme example. They require a high number of air changes per hour, high-efficiency filtration, positive pressure so that air flows out — not in — during surgery, and strict temperature and humidity control. All under standards such as those of ASHRAE and the IMSS guidelines. One degree too many or a badly adjusted pressure stops being a technical detail and becomes a risk.

Clio has developed projects at multiple healthcare institutions across the country. In Morelia we installed air handling units and a 1,500-ton chilled water plant with area classification for operating rooms. At the Tepic Women's Hospital we engineered 245 tons in packaged units, 270 tons in operating room air handlers and 70 tons of VRV system, plus extraction and ventilation for critical areas. We have also worked for the Jalisco Cancer Institute and medical centers in Tampico and Lagos de Moreno, always to ASHRAE and IMSS standards.

The lesson for any hospital project is clear: HVAC is not designed at the end, as one more service. It is designed alongside the clinical architecture, because pressures, flows and area classifications determine where everything can go.