ventilation for steris system one rooms

[anna grayson]

Can anyone tell me if the pressure of the room that houses a steris system 1 machine must be positive or negative.
I searched through the aami st.46, as well as the TIR17, and could not find anything. I'm thinking it should be negative, but would like the rational whether it is negative or possitive.
Thanks!!

[cindynrh]

I would think it would be in a positive presure room. My rational is that it should be in a clean/substerile area and therefore you would want the room to have positive pressure to prevent circulating air from common or dirty areas to be sucked into the room. A negative air pressure room should do just the opposite, i.e. prevent bugs from being sucked out of the room. As far as the actual ventilation requirements for the Steris machine, the manufacturer should provide that info.

[sonny1388]

The Steris service rep is here, and (although I wouldn't go off of what he says as law) he said that it shouldn't matter either way, because all of the air that goes into the machine goes through a sterile filter. However, I would think as Cindy said, that I would keep it in a positive pressure area where the air is less likely to be contaminated. We keep one in our pack prep area and two in the substerile behind out Cystology room.