New Emergency Care Hospital Supported by KNX
Abtec’s latest KNX project is now live. England’s first specialist 24/7 emergency care hospital is now delivering services to patients.
Behind the scenes, the Northumbria Specialist Care Hospital in Cramlington, has over 3,500 KNX devices and 6,000 DALI luminaire fittings.
Novel uses for KNX
Abtec designed, configured and deployed the hospital’s extensive KNX and DALI networks. As well as controlling standard devices, such as heating and cooling, there are novel uses for the protocol too. Theatre anaesthetic gas volumes are monitored, with alarms triggered if they breech set points. Critical blood bank refrigerators’ temperatures are monitored to ensure the safe storage of bloods. Water temperatures are kept to a rigid monitoring regime too, to mitigate the threat of legionella.
Automated emergency lighting testing
The hospital’s entire lighting uses DALI over KNX to deliver sophisticated, interactive lighting control. The lighting design complies with CIBSE Lighting Design Guide L2 specification, and emergency lighting testing and reporting is now a scheduled automated process.
Abtec’s KNX engineers created several areas of integration with other building control protocols. The building’s third party access control system now integrates with lighting and climate control. Access cards no longer just open doors they also trigger lighting and heating in certain rooms.
Dave Watkins, Commercial Director Abtec Building Technologies, notes “This is another great example of KNX going beyond room and building control. The open standard is now being used to monitor critical resources in the building”.
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital opened on 16th June 2015 and is the first purpose-built hospital in England to have emergency care consultants in a broad range of conditions on site 24/7. The new emergency care hospital will treat seriously ill and injured patients from across Northumberland and North Tyneside and is part of Northumbria Healthcare’s new model of emergency care which will help save more lives and improve clinical outcomes for more patients.
