ASHLAND — Two Ashland care facilities recently implemented a unique, additional approach to fight the spread of COVID-19 within their facilities.
In late November, LSS The Good Shepherd and LSS Lutheran Village began installing ionization machines, manufactured by Global Plasma Solutions, at their buildings to clean indoor air.
The machines are intended to reduce airborne pathogens when added to HVAC systems. The leadership of these care facilities hope the machines will reduce the spread of COVID-19 until residents and staff receive a vaccine. Afterwards, they believe the machines will offer continued value by limiting the spread of other viruses.
LSS The Good Shepherd has seen 55 cumulative COVID-19 cases in residents, and LSS Lutheran Village has seen three in total.
“It’s a real investment in our buildings, our staff and really our future in terms of providing good quality air, which is essential,” said Jennifer Hamilton, director of communications for LSS. “I think anything we do is better than nothing.
“Being proactive rather than reactive is better, but unfortunately, we all had to be reactive in this.”
According to a video by the manufacturer, the technology produces a high concentration of positive and negative ions, spreading them throughout the facilities via the ventilation system. When the ions contact pathogens, they render them inactive. Also, the ions will attach to particles, enlarging them and making them more easily filtered from the air.
“I’m no scientist, but it’s doing the right thing. It’s just doing the right thing for, for all those we serve,” said Donald Connor, director of maintenance for LSS.
He looked into third-party testing after learning of the technology, but found the cost to be too steep for LSS. He continued asking questions and discovered that a larger company, which he did not name, was also curious about the technology. The larger company was willing to share the results of third-party testing with LSS.
“We wanted the third-party study that told us how it kills COVID-19 specifically,” Connor said. “The results were very, very promising.”
Dozens of the machines were installed at the two Ashland-based facilities, positioned with a focus on cleaning air in common spaces.
The machines were purchased late this year. LSS spent $20,000 out-of-pocket to install the machines at its two facilities. The additional $22,500 was covered by CARES Act funding.
“We invested a lot as an agency in funds to make sure that we could get this done, and that’s because we feel it’s incredibly important to do all that we can to mitigate the risk of COVID to our residents and our staff,” Hamilton said.
The deadline to use the CARES Act funding is Dec. 31, 2020. The machines had to arrive and be installed before then.
“We were fortunate that we had already done our due diligence to figure out what was right, what was appropriate for our building, what would actually work,” Connor said.
He had been looking into air filtration systems since March and installed temporary, less expensive filtration in the interim. Additionally, other cleaning and sanitation practices have been emphasized and often increased in frequency over the past few months.
“These machines are one of a group of things that we can do, and hopefully the summation of all of those together is what really will protect our staff, our residents visitors, doctors, anyone who comes into our facility,” Hamilton said.
