Off-Site Central Sterile Services Building
As the first in Ohio, the 60,000-sf dedicated off-site central sterile facility is a free-standing building located at the intersection of Ackerman Road and Kenny Road in Columbus, Ohio. The surgery department is essential to holistic patient care and a key revenue source for the health system. Having clean, sterilized instruments is the life blood of surgical operations. A separate, dedicated building for the medical center and outpatient facilities allows the process to be as resilient as possible while continuing the flow of instruments to surgical departments across the health system. The CSS houses three distinct large work zones: the Decontamination Area, Prep/Assembly Area, and Sterile Supply area, along with support areas consisting of administration, changing rooms, and shipping and receiving docks.
IMEG provided mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and technology design services for the project. The top priority for the owner was ensuring the continuity of service and providing critical system redundancy. IMEG led discussions evaluating process water, electric, process steam, cooling, heating, air distribution, and telecom redundancy for the facility. This included documenting all resiliency, cost, and feasibility studies in A3 documentation forms used for leadership sign-off. The final design included redundant (N+1) equipment where appropriate, utility bypass services where operationally feasible, secondary utility services, and on-site fuel storage methods to accommodate the building operational plan.
The next priority as listed in the Owner’s Project of Requirements was to consistently maintain the temperature, humidity, and pressurization requirements of each space to meet FGI requirements or the owner’s recommended temperatures for staff comfort. IMEG worked with the users to determine temperature and humidity requirements for each space and designed the systems to accommodate the most stringent requirements in the decontamination area. Pressurization of each space was designed using a robust system of airlocks, variable exhaust, and active pressurization controls.
IMEG was able to utilize our healthcare expertise coupled with complicated process system design to provide a significant benefit to the owner’s vision for the future of their healthcare infrastructure and operations.
