Open Windows
It turns out that closed windows in large hospital wards may increase patients’ risk of getting an infection. Using a tracer gas to simulate how airborne infections spread, researchers of a recent study showed that open windows help ventilation in the ward and lowers the risk of airborne infection. The study in the current online issue of the Building and Environment Journal showed that when the windows were closed the risk of infection increased fourfold. So, the question is, why aren’t windows able to be opened? I know the answer but it is a pop quiz for you.
So the nurses either don’t throw the computers, or themselves out.
During and for decades after after the influenza pandemic it was assumed that closed building spaces were invitations to the transmission of respiratory infections. Steam heating systems were designed to keep buildings warm despite open windows in the middle of winter. The wheel in the sky keeps on turning….
Make sure to tell us the answer next week, or something! I think it’s to stop pts from jumping and/or save costs on heating/cooling, since it’s all centralized.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE JUMPERS!
I thought you were going to say that. But they make better windows these days. Windows on all the new, fancy apartments don’t open wide enough for even a toddler to squeeze out. Still nice for a breeze.
It keeps physicians from jumping to our deaths after realize what our REAL hourly pay is…
Good ole Flo the Nightingale was right.
Fresh air. One the ground floor….
Windows don’t open so patients can’t escape.
Our hospital had windows that would open about 10″. Then an end-stage cancer patient (who had lost a lot of weight) wiggled through one on the fifth or sixth floor and jumped. My recollection is that she lived, but with multiple fractures. After that, all the windows were limited to opening about 3″.
Guessing it has something to do with the patients like the one I dealt with who decided to swan dive out of the 14th floor. Or the elderly gent who went out the window to go home….
Even if you have a safe patient in the room, sometimes the others don’t stay where they belong.
Another healthcare paradox.