Room climate control at the University Hospital Basel

At Basel University Hospital, cutting-edge medicine meets world-class research. In the largest health center in Northwestern Switzerland, over 8,000 employees ensure the well-being of 42,000 inpatients every year. Its proximity to the University of Basel creates synergies and promotes an intensive exchange between clinical practice and innovative research. Together with the local pharmaceutical companies, the University Hospital Basel forms the center of the regional life sciences cluster.

The University Hospital's guiding principle is “value-based medicine”. The focus here is not only on therapeutic success, but also on the holistic well-being of patients. This is specified by patients themselves Value Based Healthcare.

At the same time, the University Hospital has made a commitment to sustainable action and is a member of the international “Green and Healthy Hospitals” network. Intelligent energy management and the improvement of the ecological balance of infrastructures is an integral part of the defined sustainability strategy.

Excellence is in the blood of Basel University Hospital. So it's only logical that Eliona is used there.

Initial situation and challenge

The university hospital approached our installation partner with the requirement to extend and expand the existing building technology. A central component of the requirements was to be able to read and control the values of the individual patient rooms via an intuitive graphical interface.

In order to promote the well-being of patients and speed up their convalescence, room temperature control in the patient rooms is particularly important. A temperature of 21 to 23 ºC must be maintained, while at the same time taking humidity and dew point into account. These values must be continuously monitored and displayed transparently.

In order to guarantee optimum energy efficiency in line with the company-wide sustainability concept, the (existing) blind control system and unwired window contacts must also be taken into account.

All patient rooms are heated via existing, permanently installed ceiling heating pipes. These are used for heating in winter and cooling in summer. Wherever possible, the cooling return with changeover circuits and heat exchangers is used for ecological cooling.

Implementation

The building infrastructure has “grown historically” over time and different expert systems are used simultaneously. Creating a harmonious system from this was no problem for Eliona thanks to the open system architecture. The engineers on site, on the other hand, faced a considerable challenge.

Around 160 room controllers were installed in the patient rooms alone and connected to the building management system via BACnet. Here, the University Hospital Basel relies on the tried and tested APROL. The other protocols used, M-BUS and Modbus, can also be easily integrated into Eliona.

With over 160 devices, it is easy to lose track. Eliona's powerful BIM function is used to intuitively identify and control every available room controller. The building is realistically represented by an interactive, three-dimensional model. Thanks to the high level of detail, it is possible to zoom in to room level and identify each individual controller.

At the same time, all devices are also available in a hierarchical view that users are familiar with from their File Explorer.

Benefits

The university hospital's requirement to create a user-friendly and intuitive solution for evaluating building data was met 100% thanks to Eliona. Each room controller and each data point can be read out separately via Eliona's intuitive interface. If required, the system can be expanded with minimal effort, e.g. to integrate an alarm function or send automated analyses and reports. The engineering effort is minimal.

It is particularly noteworthy that the additional work required for the planned upgrade was virtually non-existent. Thanks to Eliona, even non-specialist building users can access relevant data easily and intuitively.

Eliona is proud to contribute to the well-being of patients and staff in one of the world's best hospitals.