Multidisciplinary design firm Cushing Terrell has developed a solution for air circulation and ventilation in patient and operating rooms to prevent the spread of infection. The solution, developed by the firm's mechanical engineering team, enables standard hospital patient rooms to be converted from positive pressure to negative pressure.

"Negative pressure rooms are designed to contain a patient’s breathing within the room, helping to prevent the spread of airborne viruses and disease. When a patient who is suspected to have, or is diagnosed with COVID-19, the availability of rooms like these becomes critical to protecting other patients in the hospital," said Shawn Murray, Principal at Cushing Terrell who leads the mechanical engineering group.

In developing this response to existing ventilation issues, the team began with collaborating with Billings Clinic facility staff to assist them in converting 100 patient rooms into negative pressure isolation rooms. "We re-engineered, air balanced, and specified new supply and exhaust airflow for several bed floors in the hospital. It was vitally important to reconfigure enough rooms on the ICU floor where the intubation and extubation of ventilators for critical patients could create the highest risk for transmission to other areas of the hospital," Murray explained in a statement.

The result of the project enables staff to operate in one of 4 modes:

• Mode 1: Normal operations / minimum outside air
• Mode 2: Normal operations / 50% outside air
• Mode 3: Normal operations / 100% outside air
• Mode 4: Isolation operations / 100% outside air