![]() The air is unable to recirculate, so it protects the patient from pathogens and germs from outside the room. Since the air is forced out through the door, there is too much pressure leaving the room for it to re-enter the room. In hospitals, positive pressure rooms are used to protect critically ill and immunocompromised patients. So when a door is opened, the air rushes outside of the room, carrying out particles and germs. The air pressure inside the room is higher than the pressure outside the room. Positive pressure rooms are the opposite of negative pressure rooms – and are a common piece of cleanroom technology. This piece of cleanroom technology, though, has been instrumental – especially at the start of the pandemic – for isolating COVID-19 patients to slow the spread. This anteroom allows staff to safely put on personal protective equipment (PPE) before entering the room. The hospitals are pairing negative pressure rooms with a positive pressure portable anteroom. As we see surging numbers, the demand for these rooms has skyrocketed, but we simply cannot build them fast enough. Many hospitals had some negative pressure rooms before the pandemic, but COVID-19 forced hospitals to hastily build more. When the air leaves the room, it must go through a HEPA filter before recirculating throughout the hospital. The CDC recommends changing the air 12 times per hour. The air in these rooms is monitored and regularly changed. Thus, it’s important to protect the staff and other patients from breathing the same air as the sick patient. Typically, when a patient is kept in a negative pressure room, their illness is more dangerous to the outside world than outside germs are to them. Since the air rushes into the room when a door is opened, the germs all stay inside the room with the patient. These negative pressure rooms are often called “isolation rooms”. ![]() These illnesses can include measles, tuberculosis, SARS, MERS, COVID-19, and more. Negative pressure rooms are not just used to combat COVID-19 spreading in hospitals, but are a common practice when a patient has a highly infectious disease. How Are Negative Pressure Rooms Used To Fight COVID-19? ![]() This anteroom would also serve the purpose of helping to equalize pressure without allowing air to rush into the cleanroom, carrying in contaminants. We usually recommend some form of anteroom for gowning and safely moving in and out of the room. This can be applicable in some pharmaceutical and laboratory applications where the contents being studied could be harmful outside of the cleanroom. We will use negative pressure when we have to keep contaminants inside the cleanroom. In cleanrooms, we will occasionally see negative pressure used, although positive pressure is more common. Thus, all the germs are kept inside the room! Since the atmosphere seeks to stay in equilibrium, when the door is opened, the air rushes into the room to try to equalize the pressure. ![]() In a negative pressure room, the air inside the room is kept at a lower pressure than the air outside the room. Both are used in hospitals and cleanrooms, but we’ve seen a massive increase in the use and demand of negative pressure rooms during the pandemic. There are two types of pressurized rooms: negative and positive. Aside from HEPA filters, hospitals have been using a piece of cleanroom technology to contain the illness in the hospital to protect the staff. To combat the spread of COVID-19 amongst hospital staff and patients, hospitals have been paying extra attention to their contamination control procedures. Throughout August 2021, the illness has overrun hospitals. It’s no secret that COVID-19 has drastically impacted the world around us.
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