Hospitals are very complicated environments for humans and pathogens. Think of all the long hallways, entrances and exits, air currents and pressure differences between rooms. Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have partnered with The University of Chicago Medicine to study bacterial movements around a hospital and how the internal environment influences that activity.
The investigators setup a bunch of environmental sensors such as thermometers, barometers, and bacterial capture devices and mapped out how everything interacts to create the microbiome of the hospital. They’ve been tracking this data for three years to help develop new methodologies for designing the hospitals of the future that will help prevent the spread of dangerous pathogens.
Here’s a video report from Argonne on the study:
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Source: The University of Chicago…