CSSD water solution delivered two weeks early for $720 million hospital upgrade

Private hospital operator Healthscope upgraded The Prince of Wales Hospital located in Sydney’s eastern suburbs with a new Acute Services Building. The $720million upgrade was the first in 25 years for the hospital which specialises in neurosurgery, cardiac, orthopaedic surgery, maternity and physiotherapy.

The building design was ‘patient led’, taking into careful consideration the latest research in hospital facilities such as how design can contribute to a positive patient experience and recovery times. The build includes a new Emergency Department, Intensive Care Unit, a helipad, Operating Theatres, Medical Assessment Unit, Inpatient Units, Psychiatric Emergency and a Central Sterilisation Services Department (CSSD).

A CSSD plays a vital role in ensuring patients aren’t at risk of acquiring an infection by decontaminating and sterilizing reusable medical devices and equipment, such as surgical forceps and endoscopes.

We were engaged by the project hydraulic engineers to design a CSSD water treatment system to deliver Australia/New Zealand Standard 4187:2014 compliant water.

We engineered a pre-treatment system consisting of:

  • An automatic water softener – where we reduce calcium in the water as it creates scale
  • A carbon dechlorination filter – we remove chlorine to protect the RO membrane which breaks down when expose to Chrlorine.
  • EndoTherm packaged Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant – a cutting-edge technology incorporating duty/standby operation, automatic hot water sanitisation, raw and permeate water buffer tanks and comprehensive control functionality. Allowing the system to run without any input required from staff. It also was mounted and enclosed in a compact, mobile plug-and-play skid.

The EndoTherm RO system was designed specifically for the Prince of Wales site to operate the treated water tank and distribution ringmain at >60°C. At this temperature it speeds up the wash cycles, reduce the time otherwise required to heat the water in the washer disinfectors and the sterilisers.  This efficient design improves the overall output of the CSSD.

With a tight project program, the system had to be designed, manufactured and delivered to the site within 10 weeks, we were able to deliver this two week’s early.

Following the successful installation and commissioning, a comprehensive training program was conducted to educate Maintenance teams, CSSD operators and nursing staff on the operation and functionality of the plant. A preventative maintenance program was implemented to ensure water quality and quantity requirements are met and to optimise operating costs. Furthermore, the routine maintenance works will ensure environmental efficiency, maximises equipment life and minimises/ CSSD down-time.