What is 'Good' LED Hospital Lighting?

The way hospitals and healthcare facilities are, by nature, is very fragile. It’s a simple concept, and it can’t be ignored; it will always be a fragile environment in a hospital like environment in which patients need tending to.

The importance of the lighting system is often times overlooked as something that could produce not only unsafe environments if handled improperly; but also as a way to improve the bottom line. Both of these things can be addressed and even resolved with a quality hospital lighting system, key thing to remember there is quality.

In effort to help you identify what exactly a qualified LED lighting system is for healthcare facilities, we’ve outlined those identifiers below that you should always be on the lookout for when making a purchase of lighting fixtures for your facility…

Here is what defines a quality LED lighting system for healthcare facilities:

• Exact color temperatures based on a patient needs. With LED, you have a much broader and more exact choice of what color temperature you want to be installed. This gives you the option to meet certain scenarios and situations with the most optimal light for that room and / or area.
• LED technology will never flicker. A flickering light can cause some serious issues, especially in such fragile environments where you’ve got to watch your every move when it comes to your buildings operations. When you have flickering lights, they can cause eye stress, loss of attention, and overall discomfort. These can prove to be dangerous for not only patients directly, but also for doctors and staff. Since LED technology is built in a way that they will never flicker, they are the (for this reason alone) a winner when it comes to a good lighting system for your facilities.
• LED technology will never buzz. This point goes hand in hand with the point above. Buzzing causes people to be annoyed, lack of attention; all of which is no good for these types of environments. Opt-out for buzzing and flickering lights by switching away from technologies like fluorescent and HPS, and convert to LED for no more buzzing lights.
• They don’t contain toxic gases. Seriously, who in their right mind would put a toxic gas into their building in the first place; let alone a hospital? With fluorescent lights, you put your patients and staff at risk because they contain mercury. This is no place for mercury to get started, and it should not be anywhere near a fragile environment such as a hospital.
• Testing and approved by 3rd parties. Within the commercial lighting industry, we have one main organization that tests and either qualifies or doesn’t qualify fixtures based on their quality and efficiency. The DLC (or DesignLights Consortium) qualifies most commercial lights; and you should only be buying these fixtures that are qualified. Otherwise, you won’t truly know what you are in for when you buy and receive your new lights. On top of that, DLC qualified lights (either standard or premium) are typically eligible for rebates. This allows you to reduce your initial cost of investment, and produce a higher ROI

Things that all facilities should consider:

• Buy DLC qualified to get rebates. Like we just talked about, by buying DLC qualified you are eligible for more rebates; more often. This is a huge way to reduce your initial investment all while increasing long (and short) term ROIs.
• Never be cheap. Going cheap and trying to “save a buck” won’t be sustainable in the long run. By going with quality, you will run into a situation where you actually save a LOT more than if you were to cheap out every time it is time to switch out the luminaires in your building. It’s just not worth it.
• Lumens per watt is EVERYTHING. Lumens per watt is the pure definition of what efficiency is when it comes to any light; not just commercial lights. When you search for the higher lumen per watt luminaire, you will find yourself with the most (or close to most) efficient light fixture that you can find. This in turn, allows you to use less watts to produce the same amount of light as a competitive fixture would produce.
• Become educated, it will save you. Being aware of technology and industry terms, knowing what it what when it comes to types of fixtures, and knowing what to look for per se is highly important. Without being aware of what you should be looking for depending on the situation, you may just end up with the wrong fixture, for the wrong application.

Final Words

That about sums it up, we hope this post has brought some awareness to the issue’s that low quality and outdated lighting technology can cause in your buildings.

The simple answer to avoid it all is simple: choose LED. It’s the obvious and easy choice because it will save you money and increase safety for your patients and staff. How can you ask anymore from a lighting system?

source http://my-led-lighting-guide.tumblr.com/post/153128621678