Evaluation of computer flow modelling in operating theatres

Nowadays most Operating Theatres (OT's) in the Netherlands have a certain standard configuration to guarantee good control of airflows and by doing so keep the risk of infections from airborne contaminants low. It is, however, the question if this risk is low enougii. A correct answer can only be found by taking into account other sources of infections and effects of preventive measures such as improved procedures, clothing, training etc. Such an integral approach is followed in the Dutch "Integral Contamination Control Health Care" project (1). The study presented here has been performed as part of the project. It deals with improvement of airflow control in operating theatres by cost-effective research methods. In particular the method of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), to predict cost-effectively airflow patterns, temperatures and spread of contaminants near the patient is evaluated. Within TNO, computations based on CFD are being performed with the in-house code WISH3D. It was therefore obvious to chose this code to be evaluated. In particular, because additional tuning of the code can be performed very easily.