Context:
In March 2012, UZ Brussels has announced that they will expand their surgical facility. During this Ph.D. research project, an innovative light and ventilation concept has been developed to reduce post-operative infections. The system is currently patent-pending. When a patient undergoes surgery, there is still a chance between 1% and 4% that he or she will develop a post-operative infection. Besides pain and discomfort, these infections can lead to hospital re- admission, additional surgical procedures or even death of the patient. Also, these infections lead to increased costs for the patient and health care. One of the measures to reduce the infection rate is the ventilation system which refreshes the air in the operating room. In modern operating rooms, a ”laminar downflow” is installed..

Problem statement:
Such a laminar downflow system provides clean, cooled air, that descends on the patient from the plenum. However, this laminar flow is perturbed by the surgical luminaire, thus causing turbulent air flows.

Post-operative infections may originate as airborne pathogenic particles from outside the protective zone enter the surgical site by these turbulent air flows. To reduce or even eliminate this disturbance of the laminar airflow by the surgical lighting, we propose an integrated concept of an LED-based and automated light source, mounted above a ventilation chamber.

An innovative concept is developed to integrate surgical lighting and ventilations, which

(a) reduces post-opertive infections a reduction of particles of 66%, compared to traditional LAF ceilings

(b) complies to the technical standards for lighting and ventilation based on simulations and validations in a controlled environment

Market opportunities:

(a) In short-term, funding of hospital will be based on performance indicators as the number of post-operative infections

(b) There is a general trend to use implants in all surgical disciplines

(c) The system is more easy to integrate in hybrid operating rooms.

.

.