Evolving Statement on COVID-19 Preparedness & Response

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Thought leaders in the education facility electrotechnologies (power and information and communication technology) have been convening online to prepare recommendations to US school districts, colleges and universities over the past several days.  All of us are fairly busy with other work but want to contribute relevant information for education facility industry leaders.  We have prepared a public document that contains the insights of some of the most respected voices in this space.

Q&A / Evolving Statement on COVID-19 Preparedness & Response

Keep in mind that this is an evolving document.

Hope this helps.

Mike & Jim

One thought on “Evolving Statement on COVID-19 Preparedness & Response

  1. Please note, the following comments are given without a thorough review of the prior comments. My apologies if I duplicate any of those prior comments. Also, I have not done any detailed editorial review of my own comments.

    Q1 Should Student Housing be used in Covid-19 patients?: Before that can truly be answered there is another question. And that question is, medically, how will the housing rooms be used. There are a number of medical areas to consider
    1. ICU rooms,
    2. Step-down patient rooms,
    3. Normal patient rooms,
    4. Triage Rooms, or Emergency Rooms.
    5. Testing Areas

    If resident rooms are to be considered ‘patient care rooms’ in the broader sense; items 4 and 5 should be removed from consideration since these are normally ‘transitory’ functions.

    ICU rooms should be removed from also since the infrastructure needs are to great.

    Only Step-down rooms (2), or normal patient rooms (3) might be accommodated in the resident rooms – if the power and data infrastructure is ‘close’ to the needs.

    As noted below in the power and data questions, older resident halls may be poor choices since they are often underpowered, and/or lack even minimal data infrastructure backbones.

    Q2 Bandwidth Demands: ‘Nurse station’ patient monitoring, patient-nurse communications (nurse call), medical equipment’s data monitoring, and electronic patient records (among other things) and all essential services in modern hospitals. Most of these need to be provided, at least in rudimentary form. This means data cabling of at least Cat 3 (?), reasonably sized communication rooms on all floors, and a reasonably sized BDF (Building Distribution Frame) should be in place. Ideally each such room have (or be sized to accept) a local, rack-mounted UPS to support minimal services

    Q4 Power system modifications: There are a number of issues to be aware of in repurposing student dorm rooms to Covid-19 rooms relating to electrical power:
    – Dorm rooms, especially in older dorms, likely may not have more than one dedicated circuit. When more than one circuit is present, it is likely shared with an adjacent room.
    – Following up on the above comment, even recovering patients might be on ventilators and other medical equipment which might load up a floor panel.
    – Normally there is little, if any, emergency power in dorm rooms – either for power or lighting.

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