Clear the Air: How Portable Air Scrubbers Tackle Dust Head-on

As a medical facility manager, you understand how critical the indoor air quality (IAQ) in your medical center is to the facility's overall health. You’ve likely tried a variety of IAQ solutions to keep potential dust and pollutants at bay. While indoor air pollution is unavoidable, your approach to mitigating the risks can make all the difference when it comes to staying compliant.

When you need to be sure that your facility’s air is as clean and compliant as possible, trust your IAQ with industry-leading equipment that can scrub the air and limit the impact of ongoing construction projects. Air scrubbers, purifiers, and negative air machines provide your facility with a proven lineup of IAQ solutions that will set your facility up for success in meeting industry standards.

Indoor Air Pollutants are Everywhere — Are You Prepared?

Dust is inevitable in any indoor setting, but a medical center is up against constant sources of dust, debris, and pollutants. Combine that with a building full of sensitive patients, staff members, and visitors, and it’s a recipe for irritation and the spread of disease. 

When healthcare dust is not dealt with, it can lead to an increased risk of HAIs, or Hospital-acquired Infections. For so many patients, this can be extremely harmful — even deadly. As a facility manager, you're tasked with the critical responsibility of mitigating these risks to avoid health complications and non-compliance.

Common Sources of Indoor Air Pollution Include: 

• Cleaning Agents: The spectrum of chemicals used in heavy-duty cleaning varies widely, but many of them can irritate patients in a medical setting. 
• Paints: Introduce potentially harmful chemicals into the indoor air — particularly when fresh paint is applied. 
• Pesticides: Toxic chemicals intended to prevent insect infestations can also cause harm to sensitive hospital patients.  
• Aging Building Materials: Older buildings may release pollutants like asbestos into the air as the materials break down over time. 
• New Building Materials: Products like pressed lumber can release toxic off-gassing into the surrounding environment. 

3 Practical Strategies to Minimize Construction Dust in Medical Settings

It’s not enough to simply understand the sources of dust and pollutants. Your IAQ depends on your facility’s ability to improve the air quality by removing or redirecting harmful airborne particles. This can be done with cleaning and maintenance, ventilation, and purification and filtration equipment. 

1. Regular Cleaning and Maintenance: Proactive and routine care of HVAC systems, air ducts, and structural components of the facility is a great first step. Diligent maintenance curbs the buildup of dust, mold, and various other pollutants and makes the work of your filtration systems more efficient. 
2. Ensuring Proper Ventilation: Facility managers are tasked with ensuring that the building’s ventilation systems are not just operational, but also efficient in circulating fresh air throughout the facility. This can mean both ensuring that HVAC systems are functioning properly but also that your teams are making the best use of open windows and other methods of ventilation around the building. 
3. Implementing Air Purifiers, Filters, and Scrubbers: Making use of air purifiers and filters in strategic locations, especially in high-traffic zones, can dramatically enhance air quality. Whether you opt for a high-efficiency particle air, HEPA, filtration system, air scrubber, or purification system, these tools are excellent ways to support a healthy IAQ for a modern medical center. 

Air Scrubbers: The Ultimate Weapon Against Indoor Pollution

In the battle against indoor air pollution, portable air scrubbers are your best choice to maintain compliant IAQ levels and avoid patient irritation. They work by physically pulling in contaminated air, passing it through advanced filtration systems, and then releasing purified air; these machines effectively remove harmful substances from the environment. This includes not only particulate matter but also gases, chemicals, and biological contaminants.

Air scrubbers are widely used to clean the air in medical facilities, factories, classrooms, commercial buildings, job sites, and any other places where there is a risk or concern of airborne pollutants — ranging from dust and mold spores to viruses and bacteria. 

Negative Air Machines & Scrubbers: The Dust Control Dream Team

Maybe you’re looking for an even more powerful IAQ treatment. If this is the case in your facility, you’ll want to pair your portable air scrubber with a negative air machine for the ultimate dust-busting combination. Negative air machines and scrubbers elevate air quality control by creating either positive or negative air pressure environments. This technology is particularly powerful in areas that require strict contamination control, such as isolation rooms, construction zones within medical facilities, or any space where maintaining clean air is critical. When paired together, the negative air machine can keep harmful air inside of an isolated space while the air scrubber works continuously to clean the air before filtering it back out into the area. 

Need even more powerful filtration? The combination of these two systems is most effective when equipped with medical-grade H14 HEPA filtration, which boasts a 99.995% efficiency rate at capturing particles as small as 0.3 microns. This allows you to remove not only larger dust particles but also the smaller disease-carrying ones that a portable air scrubber alone might miss. 

Go Beyond Air Purification with Air Scrubbers

While the primary function of air scrubbers is to purify the air, they’re able to go further than just purification. Certain models can also clean surfaces indirectly by releasing charged particles that attract and remove pathogens from surfaces before capturing them in the filtration system. This dual-action approach to cleaning both the air and surfaces provides an additional layer of powerful protection against the spread of infections.

Selecting the Perfect Air Filtration System for Your Healthcare Facility

Your approach to IAQ is only as good as the lineup of tools and equipment that you employ around your facility. But how can you confidently select the best machinery for your specific facility and its demands? To get started, you’ll want to consider a few factors: the size of the area, the type of contaminants present, and the specific needs of your patients and staff. Also, consider any certifications, like HEPA-compliant, for example, that are important to your facility and the level of filtration that you’re looking for. 

Regardless of the type of equipment you should choose, the best way to ensure that they will function properly for years to come is by completing proper maintenance. This includes changing filters regularly, servicing the equipment as needed, and cleaning the machinery often. Regularly replacing filters and servicing the equipment ensures that the portable air scrubber continues to operate at peak efficiency, providing the best possible protection against indoor air pollution. 

Secure a Healthier Future with Clean Air Solutions

With the right combination of IAQ strategies and equipment, you no longer have to stress over the constant dust and pollution around your facility. With powerful and flexible equipment like air scrubbers and negative air machines on your side, you can tackle dust anytime and anywhere. 

Don’t let airborne contaminants compromise the health of your medical facility. Embrace the power of advanced air scrubbing technology to create a safer, cleaner environment for everyone. For more insights on selecting the perfect air filtration system for your needs and to ensure your facility remains a beacon of health and safety, download our comprehensive guide on HEPA and ULPA filters today.