From photometry to surgery: shedding light in the darkness

In March 2012, UZ Jette has announced in the media they will expand their surgical facility. This Ph.D. develops an innovative light- and ventilation-design to reduce post-operative infections and an will be installed at this new facility. When you undergo surgery, there is still about 4% chance you will develop a post-operative infection, which will lead to discomfort, increased costs for health care and possibly hospital re-admission. One of the measures to reduce infection rate is a laminar downflow, i.e. clean, cooled air, that descends on the patient from the plenum. However, this laminar flow is perturbed by the surgical luminaire. Post-operative infections originate as airborne pathogenic particles enter the surgical site by turbulent air flows. To reduce or even eliminate this disturbance of the laminar air-flow by the surgical lighting, we will propose an integrated concept of an LED-based light source with a laminar down-flow system. This talk addresses the photometric issues that are involved when designing a surgical luminaire.