Ventilation and filtration of clinics during COVID

Dr Kelvin Ward talks about ventilation and filtration within a covid pandemic and what general practices need to know about multi-layered mitigation of risk.

Topics

Intro
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How do we mitigate risk in our clinics?
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Source control, ventilation and air filtration.
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Ventilation audit
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Air changes per hour
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Co2 monitoring
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Natural Ventilation
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HVAC systems
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Portable units and HEPA filtration
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Studies
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Purchasing HEPA filtration
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Avoiding extra features
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Still using PPE
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Take home messsages
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Take home messages

Covid is predominantly spread by inhalation of aerosols.
Covid will accumulate in spaces that aren’t adequately ventilated.
Risk remains after the patient has left the room.
A multi-layered approach to mitigate risk.
Seek professional advice (ventilation Audit).

Resources

Core recommendations for reducing airborne infectious aerosol exposure ASHREA epidemic taskforce (2021)
Indoor Air Changes and Potential Implications for SARS-CoV-2 Transmission JAMA (2021)
Exhaled CO2 as a COVID-19 Infection Risk Proxy for Different Indoor Environments and Activities Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. (2021)
Use of portable air cleaners to reduce aerosol transmission on a hospital COVID-19 ward medRxiv (2021)
Guide to air cleaner purchasing University of Melbourne
Portable Air Cleaner Calculator Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Reducing the risk of Covid-19 transmission through the use of air purifiers University of Otago

Patient Resources

Presenter

Kelvin Ward

Urgent Care Physician

Kelvin is currently Medical Director at the Wellington Accident and Urgent Medical Centre. He also consults as a technical expert for clinic audits against the Urgent Care Clinic standard. He has a special interest in the use of point of care ultrasound in the acute primary care setting and in promoting its use to other clinicians and students. Most recently Kelvin has developed an interest in air quality and has been involved in promoting to GP leads and ministry.