Would an operating theater ringed with green plants increase infection risk or reduce it?
I believe that the filtering and oxygen production of green plants is well established. Do those plants NASA approves for air filtration "emit" anything other than clean oxygen and perhaps benign esters (?) that would be a concern in an operating theater or are they environmentally benign?
My thought is that a well selected set of plants throughout the hospital might give the facility an edge in cleansing the environment that continues to elude hospitals using a more "clean room" approach.
Naive? Do these plants help eliminate airborne disease or would they contribute more filth to the environment?
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Perhaps a good idea for separate lobbies or waiting rooms, but definitely not for operating suites or patient care areas.
Plants use CO2 and release O2, which is good. They also do filter VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and other air toxins, primarily via the microorganisms living on their roots. Also good. There is a ton of research including the NASA research you referenced on the benefits of plants for indoor air quality.
But the toxins that a plant would filter from the air are actually not involved (or at most minimally involved) in hospital-acquired infections, which result from transmission of bacteria, viruses, and fungi. So they wouldn't help further "clean" the hospital from clinically significant pathogens. If anything, the soil would foster growth of some pathogens, and stirring it up even just with air flow could contaminate patients. As a comment mentioned, you would definitely NOT want that when someone is sick and immunocompromised, or intubated, or cut open on a table, or healing from wounds.
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