Blue Pillar Case Study: Houston Methodist Hospital

Transcription

1 Blue Pillar Case Study: Houston Methodist Hospital

2 Project Information Year of Initial Deployment: 2009 Customer: Houston Methodist Hospital Location: Houston, Texas Solution: Remote monitoring, testing and control of Emergency Power Supply System (EPSS) to meet compliance requirements Products: Aurora Energy Network of Things platform Blue Pillar Case Study: Houston Methodist Hospital

3 Background Houston Methodist is one of the largest hospital systems in the world. The flagship Houston Methodist Hospital is consistently recognized for preeminent clinical care and research, houses leading specialists in several medical disciplines, and is an influential teaching hospital. This paired with its location, centered amidst several leading medical centers and hospitals on the Texas Medical Center campus, makes Houston Methodist a key player in cutting edge life-science research and collaboration. With 824 beds, more than 6,000 employees and nearly 400,000 visits and admissions each year, the hospital is consistently ranked in U.S. News & World Report s Best Hospitals list, was named among the country s top hospitals in 11 different specialties in 2015, and was also named the No. 1 hospital in Texas. The buildings that house an institution of this caliber must keep pace with its status in science and medicine. For a world-renowned medical center taking a system-wide approach to quality improvement, patient safety and sustainability, driving industry best practice in facility management is a strategic initiative. An important aspect of this is energy management, and emergency power supply systems (EPSS) in particular the critical power infrastructure supporting the hospital in a crisis. subject to stringent regulations and in order to stay in compliance, these systems require regular testing, monitoring, and reporting. In fact, this requirement (EC in the Joint Commission code) was one of the most frequently cited standards of non-compliance in 2013, with 23% of hospitals cited for noncompliance. 1 For hospitals with sizeable campuses, compliance of EPSS systems is more complicated. Houston Methodist wanted to be on the cutting edge of compliance by automating these testing processes in order to ensure safety of patients during an outage, while moving to the forefront of medical facility management. These systems are the standby network of generators and switches that ensures critical, life-saving power is supplied to the hospital around the clock, in any situation. They are

4 Challenge Compliance testing, reporting and record keeping for the EPSS across multiple buildings on a hospital campus is no small task. At Houston Methodist, generators and automatic transfer switches that make up the backup system can be on the top floor of one building and in the basement of another across the campus. To access this equipment, a team of five to six people armed with clipboards and stopwatches had to walk across acres, through tunnels and up and down stairs to get from one generator to the next, taking readings by hand and writing reports. This daunting task took at least 1.5 hours per test. But with emergency backup power being one of the most important systems in the hospital during a power outage, it was a critical process. At the same time, the facility was constantly expanding and integrating different types of energy equipment. The facilities team was struggling to find a solution that could connect existing and new equipment into a centralized, automated platform. The hospital looked into automating EPSS testing with Building Automation Systems. But like most hospitals, the equipment that made up Houston Methodist s EPSS was installed at different times and consisted of equipment from several different manufacturers. Building Automation Systems options were evaluated, but were unable to connect this diverse set of EPSS equipment without customized SCADA development unique to each asset. It was simply too time-consuming and expensive to be feasible. Instead, Houston Methodist turned to Blue Pillar and its Aurora Energy Network of Things solution, which could connect to any EPSS asset regardless of make, model, vintage, or protocol, without requiring customized SCADA development. The fact that the system would automate compliance testing, drive industry best practices and increase patient safety made it an appealing solution to hospital administration. Blue Pillar was enlisted to automate compliance testing, monitoring and reporting.

5 Solution The Main Building and Dunn Tower on the campus of Houston Methodist s flagship hospital were chosen as the starting points for deployment of the Aurora Energy Network of Things platform, because they represented the best operational compliance benefit. After conducting a short site survey, Blue Pillar determined the best-fit network design, and selfconfigurable Aurora Gateways and retrofit kits were installed. Houston Methodist connected 89 pieces of EPSS equipment into a system-wide, secure network without needing any customized development. Once installed, Blue Pillar s Energy Network of Things platform began working as a system of systems gathering data from all assets. This allowed real-time visibility and control, and provided remote testing and monitoring capabilities. It took less than six months to deploy the Aurora platform in the first two buildings, with a total of four generators and 24 automatic transfer switches. Since then, Blue Pillar has expanded the software to the Jones, Fondren, Brown, and Alkrek Towers, the Central Plant and the West Pavilion building, connecting a total of 8 generators, 66 automatic transfer switches and 15 meters, with deployment in an additional five towers/buildings under proposal. Meters connected across multiple sites Pieces of EPSS equipment connected. Man-hours saved per year per connected system Automatic Transfer Switches connected 8 Generators connected and monitored

6 Customer Key Benefits from Blue Pillar Implementation The benefits to this deployment quickly became apparent. With this new technology in place, Houston Methodist was able to fully automate the remote monitoring, management, testing, and compliance reporting of their EPSS. For the first time, the hospital had access to real-time data from each piece of their connected equipment, and could manage it remotely. Consistent, automated testing and compliance reports were available to users across the organization based on internal permissions. Review of testing results was possible anytime, reducing time and effort required to prepare for an accreditation audit. Now, the automated system reduces the amount of people necessary to conduct a test from 5-6 to one. This saves between 6 and 9 man-hours per monthly EPSS test or about man-hours per year for each connected system. Houston Methodist was also able to use the Aurora platform to internally conduct load studies, gathering data that showed evidence of load creep in their systems. This refers to the normal increase of load on a given circuit that typically happens as new equipment and devices are added over time, or as wear and tear of equipment cause growing inefficient operation of existing equipment. In their case, an engineering firm in charge of updating generators had planned a replacement based on documented equipment and manufacturer specifications. However, Houston Methodist was able to present real data from Aurora s automated load studies to precisely document load creep and thus right-size their new generator to more accurately comply with anticipated load and usage than what was originally specified. This turned out to be a significant benefit to the hospital. Generator replacement in a busy urban setting such as the Texas Medical Center can require shutting down a busy street, rerouting mass transit, and bringing in a crane to remove the old generator and replace it with the new one. It s not something a facility can afford to do frequently, and misjudging the size of the generator to be installed is extremely costly. The data provided by the Aurora platform turned out to be critical to getting this right the first time. Real-time asset monitoring and control Regulatory compliant report generation for all emergency assets including Joint Commission and DNV audits Review of testing results accessible at all times Simplified preparation for accreditation audits Significantly reduced staff time needed to complete each test of the EPSS A highly-accurate, real-time and archived load profile of each enabled building

7 Conclusion Seven years after the initial deployment, Houston Methodist is still looking to Blue Pillar to optimize their energy management strategies. Houston Methodist Hospital at Texas Medical Center has streamlined compliance reporting of the EPSS in six buildings and is looking at deploying the Aurora platform in others, including remote sites. As well, they hope to expand the software deployment to almost double the number of connected meters, something that will enable Houston Methodist to start to more closely evaluate real-time energy data allowing the hospital to increase their energy efficiency efforts, reduce consumption and lower energy costs. REAL RESILIENCY AND COMPLIANCE GOALS ACHIEVED

8 Blue Pillar is the leading Energy Network of Things provider for distributed energy networks. Our award winning Aurora platform, and patented deployment methodology is the first solution to connect behind-the-meter distributed energy resources by self-prescribing secure IoT networks that enable real-time control of assets and collection of energy data. Using Aurora, hundreds of the world s most complex facilities operators have increased their energy resiliency, efficiency or self-sufficiency efforts including Duke University Medical Center, Tenet Healthcare and Houston Methodist. Energy service providers have been able to offer new services to their Commercial and Industrial (C+I) customers by centrally monitoring, managing, and dispatching behind-the-meter assets with Aurora. Blue Pillar was recognized as one of the 15 fastest growing energy tech companies in North America by the Deloitte Fast 500. Learn how Blue Pillar can help you take control of your energy future faster and more affordably by visiting or on Twitter bluepillar.com