By Dean Samet, CHSP
The American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) announced in May 2010 that effective the end of June 2010 the requirement for relative humidity levels in operating rooms has been reduced to a minimum of 20%. The new design range for ORs and short-term patient treatment stay areas is now 20-60% relative humidity (RH).
The above changes are a result of actions taken by the ANSI/ASHRAE/ASHE Standard 170: Ventilation of Health Care Facilities Standing Committee and were approved as issued in ASHRAE Standard 170, Addendum “d.” ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) 170 has been incorporated into The Facility Guidelines Institute’s 2010 edition of Guidelines for Design and Construction of Healthcare Facilities. According to ASHE, the publication of Addendum (d) “stresses the aspects of relative humidity in operating rooms in terms of clinical outcomes, comfort, and engineering concepts.”
ASHRAE Standing Standard Project Committee (SSPC)-170 based its affirmative vote to reduce the minimum humidity levels to 20% RH on recent research and an extensive literature search. This work was performed along with organizational representation from APIC (The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology), CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and NIH (National Institutes of Health). Historically, a minimum 30% relative humidity level has been mandated based on arguments for both infection control (IC) purposes and control of static discharge for fire safety purposes. SSPC-170 literature search found no direct correlation between infections and humidity levels below 30% RH, nor did they find any correlation between an RH below 35% and operating room fires.
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