HygLi collaboration

We are involved in the Hygieniasta liiketoimintaa (‘Business from Hygiene’, HygLi) project, led by the Satakunta University of Applied Sciences’ Nordic Water and Materials Institute WANDER, which enhances business collaboration around hygiene products and solutions between all parties involved in the project. 

Microbiological hygiene and healthy conditions indoors are key prerequisites of well-being. The topic was studied at the Nordic Water and Materials Institute WANDER between April 2012 and June 2014, in research projects funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation TEKES and focused on hygiene in buildings (HYGTECH1 and 2). 

Ensuring hygienic conditions in public buildings and premises, such as day care centres, schools, senior homes, hospitals, and public transportation vehicles, is essential. A key objective of the HygLi project is to create guidelines for the planning, construction, installation and furnishing of hygienic indoor environments. In addition, the project focuses on testing these guidelines, as well as a joint business operation concept for housing technology products and services.

For more information about the project (in Finnish), visit https://www.samk.fi/hankkeet/hygli

The EVICURES project, 2014–2017

The objective of the EVICURES project is the development of a new, user-oriented model for the planning of intensive care units and premises with intensified monitoring. EVICURES is a follow-up project for earlier HospiTool and HospiCaseY projects. 

It is being carried out in collaboration with the Seinäjoki Central Hospital (part of the Southern Ostrobothnia hospital district) and the hospital districts of Southwest Finland and Kainuu. Other operators involved in the project include VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, architects’ office Arkkitehtitoimisto Jääskeläinen Oy, construction product company Saint-Gobain rakennustuotteet Oy/Ecophon, consultation company Granlund Pohjanmaa Oy, and Väinö Korpinen Oy. Also the Chalmers University of Technology (Göteborg, Sweden), the University of Tampere (Tampere, Finland), the Laurea University of Applied Sciences (Vantaa, Finland), and the Schools of Health Care and Social Work and the School of Technology of the Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences (Seinäjoki, Finland) are involved in the project.

In the model under development, the personnel, management, patients and their relatives, and partners such as companies and the hospital district are all involved in the planning from its earliest stages. The model is to be used for the construction of Finland’s first EBD (evidence-based design) intensive care unit and premises with intensified monitoring, with 19 beds, in Seinäjoki Central Hospital. It will also be used for the spatial planning of the intensive care unit for newborns at the Turku University Hospital and the intensive care, intensified monitoring, heart monitoring, and ischaemic attack premises at the acute treatment unit of the new central hospital in Kajaani.

This is the first time EBD operations have been studied in Finland, and EVICURES makes use of EBD research data, users’ opinions and extensive and diverse innovation know-how and networks. The purpose of operational planning is also to improve the quality and effectiveness of intensive care and to have a positive effect on the experiences of both patients and personnel.