Posted: January 23, 2021
Community Life
Walnut Crossing as well as many senior living communities have been challenged due to COVID-19 in 2020. We are always staying up to date on what the CDC says and learning new ways to keep our residents safe. It has been a struggle to make sure residents are staying healthy mentally and physically while also making sure they are staying safe in our community. We are excited to announce that on December 28, 2020, we installed a Needlepoint Cleaner Air Ionization System in our community.
Needlepoint Cleaner Air Ionization System
The air around us in a senior living community, at home, or anywhere indoors is filled with particles such as dust, dander, pollen, smoke, odors, and even pathogens including mold, viruses (COVID-19), and bacteria. HVAC systems alone miss a lot of these harmful particles and pathogens in the air. These are harmful to us now and they were harmful to us before COVID-19 came into our lives. If a sick person sneezes in an indoor room, even in a well-ventilated room, airborne droplets containing infectious agents can remain viable for as long as six minutes according to ACHR News. In a senior living community such as Walnut Crossing, the community is filled with all kinds of people. Team members, nurses, and residents will be walking through that area of the community during those six minutes. This is why viruses and bacteria are so easily spread. This is a problem during a pandemic, but also in flu season and year-round. ASHRAE stresses that it is very important to upgrade your HVAC system with these 3 steps to ensure safety during COVID-19.
How does it work?
Ions are created naturally. They are everywhere outdoors and are always cleaning the air for us. Ions are created from the energy from rushing water, crashing waves, and even sunlight. NPBI technology generates ions indoors for us to bring the clean air outdoors we all love inside to our communities through our ventilation system.
Needlepoint bipolar ionization technology safely creates and releases ions into the air using your existing HVAC system. When these ions disperse throughout a room, they seek out and form bonds with particles in the air through a process called agglomeration. This continues to occur until the particles begin to cluster together. The larger a cluster of particles becomes, the easier it is for the system to safely filter it out of the air. Contact with positive and negative ions has microbicide effects on pathogens, which ultimately disrupts their surface proteins and renders them inactive. This process is proven to be both safe and effective.
COVID-19 Indoor Air Quality Assistance Program
Walnut Crossing was able to accomplish this huge project through the COVID-19 Indoor Air Quality Assistance Program. This program provides reimbursement for eligible applicants to help cover the costs of inspections, assessments, maintenance, and improvements to indoor heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to control the spread of COVID-19. It also provides reimbursement for devices designed to destroy bacteria, mold, and viruses. Thanks to this grant we were able to install 7 units in the common areas at Walnut Crossing. This will provide clean air for the hallways, dining room, and kitchen. We are so excited about this opportunity we were given to help protect the residents and team members at Walnut Crossing in a new way now and for many years to come.
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