ANDOVER, Mass. — Schneider Electric, an energy management and automation specialist, announced the availability of its Clinical Environment Optimization solution. Delivered as an application for Schneider Electric’s StruxureWare™ Building Operation software, the solution integrates hospitals’ clinical infrastructure with its facility infrastructure to drive innovation at every level of the organization and deliver new opportunities for energy savings, staff productivity, and patient satisfaction.

The Clinical Environment Optimization solution creates interoperability between a hospital’s building management system (BMS) and its clinical scheduling, housekeeping, admission, discharge, and transfer systems. It shares the occupancy status of patient rooms and operating theaters with the hospital’s BMS through the Health Level-7 (HL7) interface. The BMS then sets rooms to predetermined set points for HVAC and lighting during vacancy to achieve energy savings during unoccupied times. The BMS puts the room back into normal operation when it receives a notification that the patient will be returning or when a room has been assigned to maintain the optimal environment for patient healing and satisfaction.

Key benefits of the Clinical Environment Optimization solution include:

  • Energy savings – Facility managers can reduce energy use in rooms that are vacant or unoccupied for long periods of time and make more informed decisions about how to best manage room conditions.
  • Improved staff productivity – Maintenance and cleaning staff gain productivity by knowing when they can schedule work in patient rooms conveniently and efficiently when rooms are unoccupied.
  • Enhanced patient satisfaction – Patients have the ability to specify their preferred room temperature during the admission process or control it themselves from their room via a mobile app.

“Hospitals are one of the most energy intensive buildings as they operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and must follow strict lighting, heating, and air quality codes. With tight budget constraints and increases in patient loads, there has never been a greater need for hospitals to improve efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness across facilities,” said Michael Sullivan, vice president, Global Healthcare Solutions, Schneider Electric. “The new Clinical Environment Optimization solution helps health care facilities make smarter decisions about their energy use based on critical room occupancy data that previously hasn’t been used to its full potential. The end result is a win for patients, hospital staff, and the bottom line.”

Additional features of the Clinical Environment Optimization solution include: easy to understand user interface, which allows quick access to room status, reset, or synchronize functionality; quick setup through configuration tool; ability to set preferred set points at time of patient registration; ability to set maximum light level for unoccupied rooms; fail-safe feature that allows facility managers to set rooms to guarantee patient comfort; HIPAA compliance, as no patient-specific information is retained; support for multiple HL7 data sources with scheduling capability; and support for single buildings, campuses, or large enterprise-level health care networks.

For more information, visit www.schneider-electric.com. 

Publication date: 2/23/2017

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