Sterilization
Surgical instruments are sterilized in steam autoclaves. Pressurized steam reaches temperatures high enough to kill bacteria and spores, and it does it quickly and reliably. For a hospital, that alone is reason enough to keep a steam plant.
Everything else it feeds
The same plant usually serves far more than sterilization. At the Albany VA Medical Center, the high pressure steam plant supplies the kitchen, humidification, the laundry and building heat, through steam convectors and heating hot water.
That is one central source carrying several very different loads, which is part of what makes it efficient and part of what makes it critical.
Why steam and not something else
Steam carries a lot of energy per pound, because most of that energy is released when it condenses back to water. And its own pressure pushes it through the distribution piping. Together, those properties let one central plant serve an entire campus of buildings.
At Albany, three 800 HP steam boilers operating at 120 psig did exactly that for decades.
Why it can never go off
If the steam stops, sterilization stops, the kitchen stops and the buildings get cold. That makes steam work some of the most carefully planned work we do.
When we designed the boiler replacement at Albany, the design included temporary boilers to keep steam flowing while the old boilers came out. The hospital should never notice the plant is being rebuilt.
The takeaway
Steam is not a relic. In a hospital it is infrastructure that patients depend on without ever seeing it. Designing around it, and keeping it on, is a big part of what we do.