The KARMIN project is researching whether double rooms can be built as an alternative to single rooms in order to prevent infection and respond to the increasing presence of multi-resistant germs in Germany. To this end, a team of architects from the Technical University of Braunschweig has designed a prototype of an infection-resistant double room with separate wet rooms.
KARMIN (which stands for Krankenhaus, Architektur, Mikrobiom und Infektion – hospital, architecture, microbiome and infection) is a sub-project of InfectControl 2020, a consortium of commercial enterprises and academic partners which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Alongside Technical University of Braunschweig, the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the Jena University Hospital and metal processing company Röhl GmbH from Waldbüttelbrunn are also affiliated partners. 17 renowned industry partners also support the project – and Schüco is one of them.
An initial prototype has been completed at the Röhl GmbH company headquarters in Waldbüttelbrunn near Würzburg, Germany. A second prototype will be completed in October 2020 at the Charité hospital in Berlin, where it will be unveiled to an international audience as part of the World Health Summit, which has taken place every year since 2009. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, are the patrons of the 2020 event.
» More about the research project
Hospital infections and multi-resistant germs, against which antibiotics cannot help, are becoming an increasing problem in clinics. Bacteria can spread quickly, especially in rooms with multiple beds, and pose an acute risk to patients. For this reason, there have long been calls to isolate patients infected with multi-resistant germs in single rooms. However, the exclusive use of single-bed rooms entails many disadvantages and higher costs. The prototype aims to show the impact that the architecture of a hospital has on hygiene and whether double rooms provide sufficient protection against infection for patients. Dr Wolfgang Sunder from the Institute for Industry Building and Design (Institut für Industriebau und Konstruktives Entwerfen) at the Technical University of Braunschweig is heading up the KARMIN project and he believes that, “Architecture and design can make a key contribution to hygiene in hospitals, when structural infection protection is taken into account when planning and running hospitals.”
» Antimicrobial window handles
Schüco is supporting the research project through its involvement in the planning and optimisation phase as well as by providing suitable products. Aluminium windows from the AWS 75 BS.HI+ series were used in the “patient room of the future”. While one unit has been designed as a side-hung window with limiting stay that is detached via the handle, the second tilt-before-turn window is fitted with additional components for reduced operating forces. The key aspect here is that both windows were fitted with the Schüco SmartActive antimicrobial window handle. The antimicrobial effect is achieved by means of the high-purity microsilver particles incorporated in the surface finish of the handle. Germs that come into contact with the surface finish die off, so that their further proliferation is prevented. The microsilver used by Schüco is guaranteed to be free of nano particles and therefore cannot penetrate human skin.
If it is possible to keep patients safely in double rooms, many existing rooms could be repurposed and tried-and-tested operational activities maintained.
