Ventilation of Health Care Facilities

Abstract

Request from:

Dan Hertzson, Turner Engineering, 1 Woodbury Blvd., Rochester, NY 14604.

This request for interpretation refers to the requirements in ANSI/ASHRAE/ASHE Standard 170-2013, Section 6.4 and Table 6.4, regarding filter requirements for space designations.

Table 6.4 has a space designation that reads: “Inpatient care, treatment and diagnosis, and those spaces providing direct service or clean supplies and processing (except as noted below);”.

Spaces falling under this designation require MERV 7 pre-filters and MERV 14 final filters.

Typical Outpatient spaces only require MERV 7 pre-filters.

It is often difficult to get owner/operators or project architects to clarify which rooms in their facilities fall under different space designations in this table.

Our interpretation is that the particular space designation listed above applies to Inpatient Care, Inpatient Treatment, Inpatient Diagnosis and spaces supplying direct service or clean supplies and processing in Inpatient facilities, not to Outpatient facilities (i.e. these requirements would not apply to a freestanding outpatient clinic Exam Room, even though patents there are receiving direct service, diagnosis and potentially treatment by a medical professional)