Field measurement of airborne particulate matters concentration in a hospital's operating room

Abstract

In a hospital operating room, adequate air flow and cleanliness are crucial to protect the patient from surgical site infection (SSI) during a procedure. The probability of the patient to get the infection is related to the concentration of bacteria carrying particles inside the room. This paper presents a field measurement study to quantify the concentration of particulate matters (PM) in a hospital operating room which complies with the ISO Class 7 requirements. The operating room was equipped with High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters and a vertical laminar air flow (LAF) system. The measurements were conducted at three height levels from the floor namely 1.2 m, 1.8 m and 2.4 m. The data was logged at a rest condition, in accordance to the ISO 14644-1 requirements. A HPC300 particle counter was used to measure the concentrations of particulate matters namely PM0.5, PM1 and PM5. The results show that the concentrations of all particulate matters were higher at the height level of 1.2 m compared to other height levels. The concentration of PM0.5 was relatively higher than PM1 and PM5 in the vicinity of operating table.