Most plumbing engineers involved in healthcare design who I’ve talked to have said their foremost design concern is waterborne bacterial control in general, and legionella in particular.
That concern is well-warranted due to the 5.5 times increase of Legionnaires’ disease cases in the U.S. since 2000, reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hospital owners and operators are also increasingly concerned with waterborne bacteria, as it may account for at least 80,000 cases and $2 billion in Medicare payments annually. The CDC estimates that 85% of all Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks arose from contaminated water systems and could have been prevented by effective water management programs.