ANSI/ASHRAE/ASHE Standard 170 offers guidance, regulation, and mandates to designers of health care facilities. The revised 2017 edition incorporates 12 addenda to the 2013 standard andincludes the following significant changes:
- Addition of adiabatic humidifiers as an acceptable type
- Addition of a new type of exam room with lower requirements for less-acute applications
- Clarification around the prohibition of controls to change pressure relationships between spaces
- Reduction in requirements for electroconvulsive therapy procedure rooms
- Reduction in requirements for laboratories when allowed by certain calculations
- Higher requirements for higher hazard exhaust airstreams
- Coordination of space temperature requirements in the Sterile Processing Department withother industry groups
- Clarification of the definition of the primary diffuser array in operating rooms
The standard has also been reorganized into three sections: hospital spaces, outpatient spaces, and nursing home spaces. These changes were made to bring Standard 170 into alignment with the forthcoming 2018 FGI Guidelines.
