Aranet sensors optimize indoor climate and energy efficiency at Riga First Hospital by providing accurate, real-time monitoring of environmental conditions. Contact online >>
Aranet sensors optimize indoor climate and energy efficiency at Riga First Hospital by providing accurate, real-time monitoring of environmental conditions.
Riga First Hospital, Latvia’s oldest healthcare institution, was established in 1803. It provides reliable and safe medical services, prioritizing both patient care and staff safety. The facility operates within renovated buildings, over 100 years old, combining historical charm with modern healthcare standards. With a team of around 800 professionals, Riga First Hospital offers offers an extensive range of outpatient and inpatient services, including 24/7 care, using state-of-the-art medical equipment and the latest medical techniques.
Riga 1st Hospital faced a set of challenges due to its dual responsibility of preserving the historical structure of its buildings and meeting modern healthcare standards. These objectives are aimed to create a healthier and more efficient environment across the hospital’s facilities:
Ilze Aleksandroviča, a board member, highlighted that in patient-centered healthcare, controlling the indoor climate is crucial. It helps reduce health and safety risks, ensuring that clients coming for checkups, rehabilitation, or consultations don’t fall ill. This is especially important in our short-term social care facilities, which operate 24/7 and serve individuals with low immunity.
The hospital consists of 23 blocks, and so far, Aranet sensors have been installed in five of them. These sensors are primarily placed in doctors’ offices, vaccination rooms, pools and swimming areas, as well as treatment rooms. In total, 100 Aranet sensors and three base stations were installed. The hospital uses Aranet4 and T/RH sensors for climate measurements, along with T-Probe sensors for monitoring swimming pool water temperature.
Sensors are placed in most rooms of Rehabilitation clinic to facilitate effective monitoring. Evelīna Sendija Čubare, Head of the Rehabilitation Clinic, explains:
“Monitoring temperature, CO2 levels, and humidity helps us enhance patient safety by allowing us to respond quickly to environmental changes. This proactive approach prevents the spread of respiratory illnesses and mold throughout the hospital. If conditions fall outside the normal range, we can respond more effectively than before. The sensors provide precise, real-time information directly from the source, guiding us on where to go and what to do. With 24/7 online access to data, both technical staff and head nurses can respond immediately to any situation. The ‘many-eye principle’ ensures that no alarm goes unnoticed, improving overall responsiveness and patient safety.”
llze Aleksandroviča emphasized that the successful implementation of temperature monitoring was a result of collaborative teamwork. By encouraging employees to adjust habits-such as turning off lights and lowering temperatures-the hospital achieved a 15% reduction in energy consumption. Additionally, improved indoor air quality has enhanced both patient and employee safety, contributing to a 27% decrease in sick leave days. These positive changes have not only improved cost-efficiency but also helped the hospital meet its environmental goals, making the investment in monitoring systems a success.
“Of course, it will not be so drastically that the patient is cold, but we will have to do so by three or four degrees,” said Paeglītis.
He said that regardless, the hospital could not coverthe large increase in costs by taking various economic measures. Support from the State is therefore still expected. There have been negotiations with theNational Health Service, but there is no solution yet.
According to Paeglītis, this year, the hospital will have additional costs of EUR 4 million, but the impact could be even higher at around EUR 6 million next year.
“One day in December so far cost less than €13,000, but with the new tariffs it would be €60,000 a day, which is more than five times of anincrease,” said the RAKUS head.
To cover the costs, several projects would have to be stalled, such as the accreditation of the Cancer Center.
According to the hospital manager, everything that would deterioratepatients'' treatment process would be affected last.
A great deal of electricity is consumed in equipment that cleans surgical instruments and sterilization equipment.
"All sterile materials for all surgical operations and manipulation are prepared here. Most are automatic instrument washing machines. We have six and each spends 10 to 12 kilowatts per hour. Each of them. This is even the smallest in terms of consumption in this department. There is other sterilization equipment in which we process it all afterward. And there, the equipment itself is quite powerful. One unit is 60-64 kilowatts powerful and uses an average of 12-16 kilowatts per hour, and we have four. And in fact, this department works in 24/7 mode, and if we accumulate it during the year, these are impressive figures," said Rīga East Hospital (RAKUS) technology director Gints Cīrulis.
These facilities are at the heart of hospital work, because it is not possible to provide operations without them, and it is not possible to reduce the capacity to use the equipment. This department was set upin 2004 and, as the hospital''s medical technology director Cīrulis says, it was not so popular to think about energy saving at the time, so, for example, the heat generated by the washing and sterilization process goes down the drain the future, buying new equipment will address this issue.
The second most electricity-consuming unit is diagnostic equipment, computer tomography, X-ray equipment, and special magnetic resonance devices, which can consume up to 25 kilowatts per hour during operation. There''s a huge room in the basement of the hospital, all full of padded pipes of different sizes and looks. It is a ventilation system located under the operating blocks.
"You can see – the entire basement is full of venting systems, venting pipes. And it is necessary that we provide very high-cleanliness air in the operating room in very large quantities, because if at home, we exchange air twice an hour, here we vent15 to 20 times an hour. And all of this, of course, is a very large amount of air and needs to be warmedand moistened. Or cooling in summer, respectively. And it consumes very large energy resources," said Cīrulis.
Similarly, intensive therapy patients are consuming a lot of energy. Depending on how many different life-saving machines are attached to one person, consumption varies, but each of the hospital''s nearly 100 intensive therapy beds consumes an average of 3 kilowatts per hour,comparable to an electric kettle switched on continuously operating throughout the day.
The impact of rising energy prices ishuge, said Imants Paeglītis, the hospital''s chairman.
“For the second half of the year – we have now estimated – it will be an additional EUR 3.2 million for gas, electricity and heat alone. Well, if prices remain at the levels as they are currently in the following year, the impact is €6.5 million. And clearly the hospital has no internal reserves to cover the increases.
"Well, what this means in hospital – if nothing changes from the state and no aid is provided to hospitals to cover the costs of these adults, we will certainly be working with losses; and what it follows is that we will not be able to rebuild our fixed assets again, our facilities and do what normally needs to be done,” said Paeglītis.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Economics(EM) explains that support for households is currently in place, but there are no support mechanisms for other target groups, including hospitals. However, the Ministry of Health will step in to find support.
Further, with specific figures and calculations, the ministry is preparing to look at colleagues in the government to find a solution that would have no effect on hospitals.
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