Copper piping is the lifeline for medical gas distribution

For centuries, copper has been viewed as one of the most versatile metals known to mankind, and today, copper is the benchmark for plumbing applications because of its reliability. We all expect that when we open our faucet, water will be there, so we take this reliability for granted.  But what if a life is hanging in the balance.  Copper medical gas systems deliver gases necessary for successful patient treatment in all healthcare settings.  Having a reliable metal, and thus a reliable system for hospital applications is paramount.

Some common gases used regularly in hospitals are medical oxygen, nitrous oxide and compressed air. Usually these gases are used on patients who are having difficult breathing or who need anesthetic during surgery

“Medical grade oxygen is of extreme importance for patients who are hypoxic (low blood level of oxygen) to the point of being a basic life support measure,” said Gerald Schlette, MS, RRT and former Director of Respiratory Care Services & Hyperbaric Departments at Montefiore Medical Center in New York.

Proper delivery of nitrous oxide and oxygen to patients who rely on these gases as part of their treatment can mean life or death.  The medical gas delivery system that supports the work of the doctor needs to be clean, efficient and reliable.

For such an essential system, copper is the obvious choice. According to Dale Powell, Project Manager & Piping Applications Specialist at the Copper Development Association (CDA), “brazed copper systems form strong, leak-tight systems that ensure gases are delivered to equipment and patients at the high pressures required and as pure as when they entered the system.” This is the kind of reliability and endurance that is essential to medical infrastructure. Even in fire conditions, brazed copper joints will hold up and provide the service that is required of them. “Copper is also impermeable,” says Powell, “so as unlikely as it may seem, it will not allow substances from outside the system contaminate the gas stream, such as in the cases of spills of cleaning chemicals or other substances.”

It should also be known that copper piping does not support the growth of microbial bacteria, according to various studies. This is important because medical gas needs to be kept as sterile as possible on the way to the patient. Copper prevents the buildup of microbial growth on the interior tube walls, ensuring not only that gas quality is maintained, but also that excessive buildup in the system over time doesn’t restrict the gas flow – Both important considerations allowing the hospital to rely on the system for the lifetime of the facility.

For these reasons, medical practitioners have come to rely on copper for their facilities’, especially hospitals’, medical gas distribution systems.  As Schlette explains, the proper and reliable delivery of medical oxygen “is basic but very real, just multiply its importance by 100 percent when talking about life support: In comes the good air (oxygen enriched) and out goes the bad air (CO2 enriched)… Many times it is up to our medical professionals to achieve this goal, (which is) not as easy as it seems!”

Copper became the preferred material for medical gas applications because it is long lasting, corrosion resistant, lightweight, durable and virtually no maintenance is required.

This is why medical professionals choose to rely on copper for this basic but essential medical treatment.

Photo Credit: Superior Essex

Category 6+ Cabling Carries Medical Images and Records to Backbone of Network

Medical care has steadily improved in recent years with improved imaging being one important factor and better management of patient records another. The sharing of medical images and records is aided by advanced networks in modern medical centers. Such data may be needed for patient evaluation and consultation with experts. Timely access can save lives.

The Carson Tahoe Medical Campus in Nevada sets a benchmark for what can be done with digital networks in a hospital setting. A high-speed, scalable, flexible data network interconnects all buildings on the 87-acre campus, including a newly constructed regional medical center as well as a center for surgery and imaging. These buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment and communications services, which allow caregivers to easily access comprehensive patient records at the bedside or point-of-care.

The campus combines the best features of copper cabling, wireless handsets and fiber optics into a seamless network. VoIP is creating extensive flexibility, allowing staff to place and answer calls from any location in the hospital using a wireless handset. For the horizontal, the Category 6+ copper cabling solution provides a reliable, no-risk performance in demanding, high-traffic networks. A fiber optic cabling system provides the backbone of the network.

“One of our goals is to create a 100-percent digital environment.” said Chief Information Officer Michael Blair, who oversees Carson Tahoe’s technology program. “That is a very bandwidth-intensive service. To create a reliable system, we needed a very strong and fast cabling network to transfer the images and data from place to place. The benefit of this change was immediate.”

A single voice and data platform was installed to support an all-digital, film-less imaging environment, electronic medical records, computerized workstations, wireless connectivity, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone system.

Multiple new digital records management systems are helping doctors order diagnostic tests and view the results, chart patient information, track patient satisfaction, order and process medications as well as send, retrieve and store large images such as x-ray, radiology, cardiology, digital mammography that demand crisp clarity.

Now, patient information can be accessed and healthcare decisions made by an authorized caregiver wherever there is a web-enabled PC.

For more information about the use of Category 6+ cabling in critical applications such as medical networks, contact the Copper Development Association or visit www.copper.org.

Bacteria can be kept at bay with copper in the classroom

Walk through any of our nation’s schools and what do you see? Smiling faces, and skinned knees. Runny noses, and high fives. Friends chatting around the lunch table, or working hard over a lab table. Kids being kids, healthy, sick or somewhere in between. Schools are laboratories for growing young minds, but are also laboratories for growing and transmitting all sorts of infections illnesses.

That’s why we just can’t be too careful when it comes to germs in schools. Eighty percent of illnesses are spread by contact, which means that when someone touches a door handle, handrail or faucet, they are leaving behind bacteria to be picked up by the next person who touches that surface. Frequent hand washing is the best way to prevent spreading bacteria, but it is not a common practice among children – or many adults – with great regularity.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists five factors that are conducive to the spread of disease-causing bacteria: crowding, contact, contaminated surfaces, compromised skin (i.e. cuts and scratches) and lack of cleanliness.  All five of these elements are present in almost every school on a daily basis.

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It seems the old adage; “You are what you eat” is a little off.  According to research recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it isn’t what you eat, but how much. Results from the two-year study, which assigned 811 overweight participants to one of four reduced-calorie diets, found that from a weight loss perspective it didn’t matter what foods the participants ate, but how many calories they consumed.  These findings are in line with a 2008 study by Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research which found that keeping a food diary can double a person’s weight loss.

A nationally projectable survey by the Calorie Control Council found participants who were currently dieting made an average of 3.6 dieting attempts in 2007, and it seems that finding a diet to produce the most rapid weight loss has long been the primary quest for the majority of dieters.  However, the current study “really goes against the idea that certain foods are the key to weight loss,” notes Frank Sacks, principal investigator and professor of cardiovascular-disease prevention at Harvard School of Public Health. “This is a pretty positive message.  It gives people a lot of choices to find a diet they can stick with.”

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Studies Find a New Way to Kill Bacteria*

What do the Washington Redskins, Toronto Blue Jays, Cleveland Browns, St. Louis Rams and Atlanta Falcons have in common?

They are all professional sport teams that have millions of dollars invested in their franchises. And they’ve all recently made headlines for having to battle a costly, and potentially deadly, infection in their locker rooms or among their players—namely, a virulent pathogen called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.

This particular bacterium not only can be lethal, it has also proved extremely resistant to antibiotics, making it very difficult to treat. As a result, MRSA has become an all-too-common source of infection in hospitals. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hospital acquired infections now kill as many as 100,000 people each year in this country alone. And the MRSA microbe is the cause of many of these fatalities.

Hospitals are not the only place these dangerous bacteria live. Health experts are beginning to recognize that places like locker rooms, gyms and other public sports and recreation facilities—even schools—can also harbor MRSA and similar disease-causing organisms.

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CaloriesCount.com helps bride lose 57 lbs. for her wedding day

Weddings last forever through pictures and memories, so it’s a day when women want to look their best.  But the dream of looking great in a wedding dress seemed out of reach for one Charlotte, NC, woman who was more than 50 pounds overweight.

Frantic to shed the weight, the woman (who asked to be indentified only as Sarah) signed onto an online dieting program, CaloriesCount.com, and lost 57 pounds, going from a size 14-16 to a svelte size 8. The website, and its easy-to-follow regimen, has also helped her keep the weight off, she says.

According to Sarah, the secrets of her success are mostly common-sense eating habits encouraged by the website, reinforced by a few simple rules. Among them:

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Squat thrusts, dead lifts, push-ups, pull-ups, rows. Sound familiar? Whether you’re a hardcore gym rat or weight-training novice, you’ve probably heard these terms at your local fitness club.

Exercise routines may differ, but to be effective they all require two constants—adequate oxygen flow to the body’s muscles, and a nutritious diet to replenish the fuel rapidly consumed by the body during workouts.

Adding aerobic exercise to your routine helps to increase the oxygen level in your blood. Oxygen is needed to promote tissue repair and recovery after strenuous workouts. It also protects against cramping and fatigue.

According to Dave Grotto, spokesman for the American Dietetic Association and recent author of 101 Foods That Can Save Your Life, our bodies react poorly when deprived of oxygen during workouts. “Your muscles won’t have any power,” he says. Insufficient oxygen “also hurts distance training, and it allows lactic acid to build up, which can cause cramping.”

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Keeping Your Young Ones Safe In and Outside The Home

With Halloween upon us, many parents are thinking about how to keep their children safe. And while precautions like staying on sidewalks, carrying a flashlight and sticking to familiar neighborhoods are important, parents and caregivers should also be concerned with potential hazards inside the home.

That’s why a new series of online public service announcements has been created.

Besides making sure all of your electrical outlets are covered and baby proofing your cabinets, the PSAs were created in an effort to educate parents about the potential hazards of window cords. According to information provided by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, since 1990 more than 200 infants and young children have died from accidentally strangling in window cords.

“The first thing so many new parents do these days is go online to get parenting information,” said Window Covering Safety Council Executive Director Peter Rush. “We wanted to create a series of public service announcements that would appeal to this younger demographic, to provide them with safety information that is both educational and entertaining.”

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Many people think of salads as just appetizers or side dishes. But by adding protein, such as grilled chicken or shrimp, salad can be the main meal – one that will leave everyone happy, satisfied and healthy.

In today’s fast-paced world, eating right is a challenge. Why go to the trouble of packing a lunch for work when we can just buy something later? Buying lunch five days a week can cost an average of about $150 per month, that’s why. That is $1,800 per year! To save money and do your body good, why not add leftovers like steak, chicken or grilled vegetables to leafy greens? The result is a delicious meal that’s quick, healthy and cost effective!

There are many other ingredients you can add to a salad to boost its nutritional value. Egg whites, tuna, tofu or nuts can provide your entire day’s worth of protein -essential to a strong body – and will also keep you satiated throughout the day. For a different spin, add fruits such as oranges, apples or tomatoes to please your palate.

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With the cold and flu season just around the corner, Americans may welcome a new study that could keep them out of the doctor’s office this year. The study, published in the September issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (JADA), revealed eating salads with salad dressing and raw vegetables is a great way to defend your body against illness. People who eat salads are getting more of the essential nutrients that promote a healthy immune system and protect against a variety of illnesses.  So be proactive – keeping healthy can be just a matter of eating a salad a day!

Recent research conducted by the UCLA School of Public Health, which examined salad consumption by more than 17,000 adults, shows that those who eat salads with salad dressing and raw vegetables every day have considerably higher levels of vitamins C, E, B6 and folic acid – key nutrients that aid in promoting a healthy immune system. A weakened immune system can result in colds, flu, chronic viral infections, fatigue and other ailments.

According to pediatricians, children get an average of eight colds per year, which is one more reason for them to finish their vegetables! Adults can expect a cold at least four times per year. If you do get sick, the old stand-by, chicken soup, is great – but it will only help you once you already have the cold. The warm broth and amino acids will help break up some congestion, but the most important thing you can do this season is to put up your best defense so you don’t get sick in the first place!

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