Costs for health care have skyrocketed in recent years. The pressures forcing these cost increases include growing demand for health care, rising costs of medical technology, malpractice liability, growing numbers of uninsured patients, and shortages of’ health care professionals. Health care institutions are forced to increase efficiency and contain costs. Maintenance and operation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (hvac) systems is one area that can suffer budget cuts without noticeably impacting direct patient care.
One of the obvious ways to control costs is to defer spending on “low visibility” budget items that seemingly have no direct impact on patients. Such cuts often are directed at the budgets for routine servicing of hvac systems, causing air quality to suffer as a result.