Medical Gas Systems Maintainability Risks in Healthcare Facilities: A Design Optimization Approach

Abstract

Medical gas pipeline systems (MGPSs) are crucial for operating healthcare facilities as life-saving systems. The sustainability of MGPSs mandates optimum performance by reducing maintenance and repairs. Since faulty design is inventible, healthcare facilities endure several design-caused maintenance issues that endanger the sustainability of healthcare services and maintenance life cycle costs. These design decisions could have been avoided if proper consideration for maintenance had been applied. Eleven experts participated in semi-structured interviews guided by Staticized Group Techniques to identify and evaluate the maintenance issues. The results included identifying 52 design-related maintenance issues that pose maintainability risks. The findings primarily fall under emergency gas supply availability, future expansion readiness, and accessibility of maintenance. The most critical issue found is the excessive cutting-outs of the pipelines when upgrading the system. For new healthcare facilities, the results of this research provide practical help for designers to avoid MGPS issues. A scarcity of benchmark research and geographical factors are some limitations to this study.