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The New York University Medical Center (NYUMC) includes a school of medicine and two hospitals, Tisch Hospital and the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine. For more than 150 years, the medical school has had a center for biomolecular medicine and an AIDS research center. In addition to diagnostics and treatment, the hospitals offer reconstructive plastic surgery services. They treat people with skin cancer. There are also training and research programs devoted to rehabilitation after spinal cord injury, stroke, and Alzheimer's syndrome. There are other areas as well.
At the end of 2003, work on two main projects began within the framework of the medical center. This is the construction of the Smilov Research Center, the new laboratories of which will amount to 14.9 thousand square meters. Also, the obsolete control and management system is being modernized, which covers 13 already existing buildings of the University, the total area of which is 279 thousand square meters. Both of these projects are expected to be completed in the most expeditious manner.
NYU is looking for long-term relationships with the companies that install and maintain building control systems. The biggest challenge the university wants to overcome is finding a provider that can accurately predict the needs of the medical center complex. This requires a flexible system that accommodates changes in residential and non-residential stock. While cost cutting is important, the university is looking for a provider that not only has the technical capacity but also project management skills. It also needs to develop a customer service department.
NYU decided that it needed a single provider for both operations and maintenance. The BACnet-based system was chosen after extensive discussions with service providers and is designed to modernize the university's aging building control systems and to equip a new lab at the Smilov Research Center with control systems.
The university's geographical location significantly complicates the solution of this problem. Throughout its 150-year history, the university has grown through a variety of buildings connected by basements and tunnels.
It has become common practice for new buildings to be built close to existing ones. Depending on the task, the extensions had different heights. As a result, the floors are connected at different levels — a passage from the fifth floor of one building can take a visitor to the fourth floor of the neighboring building. It is sometimes difficult to determine which rooms are connected to which.
The diverse nature of the medical center's work requires the creation of different air-conditioning zones. The medical center is equipped with hospital wards, operating rooms, visitor rooms, wards for tuberculosis patients and laboratories. Each such air-conditioning zone requires the creation of precise microclimate parameters, including room pressure. This is necessary to prevent airborne transmission of infection.
The medical center, which has become the heart of the university campus, is equipped with a building automation system (BAS) based on the open BACnet protocol. The newly built university premises required the installation of additional servers, the laying of new fiber-optic lines, as well as the integration of seven refrigeration units and the replacement of 240 DDC controllers (direct digital control). Thirteen automated operator workstations and seven touch screens will allow the control of both campus buildings and remote buildings — and all this using a single BACnet system.
The campus upgrade began with a comprehensive inspection of all 240 control panels. The previously installed DDC controllers were from several manufacturers. Based on the inspection results, custom-tuned DDC system controllers were manufactured to control the modular equipment using the BACnet protocol. Then, customized software was developed according to the specification and operating conditions. The building management system suppliers contacted third-party manufacturers to integrate their non-standard systems into the new BACnet-based system. To do this, special gateways were used to convert signals from different protocols.
During the work, manual switches were used in the medical center to regulate the humidity in the rooms. During this period, the previous DDC controllers were disconnected, dismantled and replaced with new ones. The sensors were connected to the campus network only after the local climate control system was tested and put into operation. After replacing all 240 control panels, technicians quickly completed the installation of the entire system.
In operating rooms, where temperature, humidity and pressure differences are particularly critical, precision devices have been installed to monitor the required microclimate parameters. An automated workstation with an Internet connection allows operating nurses to monitor the microclimate from a central console using a standard Web browser, and, if necessary, to schedule preventive procedures to maintain the operability of the equipment.
Based on the records, the medical center staff can analyze statistics over a long period of time. The graphs provided here illustrate how closely the actual temperature corresponds to the settings. This allows for comfortable conditions to be created for patients.
New York University has two biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) laboratories. The level of biological safety increases with the number of measures taken. For example, the BSL-3 laboratory is equipped with three levels of protection, allowing work with local or exotic bacteria that can cause serious or even fatal disease. The specialists who installed the equipment were specially trained and wore protective clothing, a mask, and gloves during the work.
Looking ahead, NYU plans to enter into a ten-year strategic agreement with an HVAC service company to support its facility automation needs. The agreement is expected to include new construction as well as maintenance and operations. It also includes system upgrades when space is expanded. NYU Medical Center currently has a completely updated, building-wide building automation system that controls the climate in operating rooms, patient rooms, executive offices, and BSL-3 labs.
The new system efficiently processes a powerful stream of information and collects data in an archive. These archives allow staff to reconstruct conditions before and after an alarm signal is received, which allows analyzing the cause of the alarm and the impact of violations on the hospital's operations. Additional equipment such as fire alarms, emergency power generators, air conditioners — can now be fully integrated into the system with an open BACnet protocol. The medical center staff can expand the control system without being tied to a specific manufacturer of its components. Both the modification of the old system and the installation of a new one are carried out without disrupting the university's operations. The proposed agreement means that the medical center is keeping a long-term course towards its cherished goal — to make campus buildings safer to operate and more comfortable for patients, staff and visitors.
«Finding advanced technology was far from the only challenge in choosing a service provider. We selected our supplier based on the ability to meet the requirements of the project, and the BACnet protocol was quite suitable for our potential needs,» said Richard Cohen, a representative of New York University.
Translated with permission from ASHRAE Journal, November 2006.
(c). American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc.
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