CSA Z317.13:22 Explained: What Healthcare Construction Teams Need to Know

CSA Z317.13:22 is the standard Canadian healthcare facilities rely on to keep construction and renovation projects from becoming infection risks. If your team is still working from the 2017 edition, or has never worked directly from the standard at all, this guide translates what the fifth edition actually requires into practical terms. You will see what changed in this edition, how the standard applies differently across hospitals, long-term care, and dental settings, and where construction teams most often misapply its requirements. Understanding this standard properly protects both patients and your project timeline.

What CSA Z317.13:22 Is and Who It Applies To

CSA Z317.13:22 is the fifth edition of the national standard governing infection control during construction, renovation, and maintenance of health care facilities, superseding editions published in 2017, 2012, 2007, and 2003. The standard specifies the risk assessment process, along with precautionary and remedial measures, for preventing exposure to infectious agents released or made worse by construction, renovation, maintenance, or repair activity in health care facilities. It applies regardless of the construction delivery method used, whether that is a stipulated sum contract or a public-private partnership. This scope is intentionally broad, which is exactly why teams sometimes assume it does not apply to their specific project when it actually does.

Who the Standard Is Written For

The standard addresses the responsibilities of several groups at once: facility owners, infection control professionals, design consultants, and contractors, all working from the same document rather than separate interpretations of best practice. That shared reference point is part of what makes it enforceable in a meaningful way, since every party on a project can be held to the same written expectations.

What Changed in the Fifth Edition

A New Pre-Construction Checklist and Site Turnover Requirements

The fifth edition introduced a formal pre-construction checklist along with new requirements for site turnover, giving teams a structured starting point rather than relying on informal handoffs between design and construction phases. Facilities that skip this checklist often discover mid-project that a requirement should have been addressed during design, when it is considerably more expensive to fix.

Updated Air Handling Requirements

Requirements for construction air handling units, including testing and certification, were updated in this edition. This means facilities relying on older mechanical specifications for temporary air handling during a project should confirm their equipment and testing protocols still meet current requirements before relying on them for an active build.

Clarified ICRA and Infection Control Plan Requirements

The fifth edition specifically clarified the infection control risk assessment and infection control plan requirements, along with updated supporting annexes. This clarification matters in practice because earlier editions left more room for interpretation about exactly what the ICRA needed to document, which created inconsistency between facilities and even between projects at the same facility. Our detailed walkthrough of ICRA for healthcare construction covers how to apply these clarified requirements step by step.

Modular Hoarding and Updated Barrier Requirements

New provisions cover modular hoarding systems, along with updated figures illustrating barrier configuration examples and revised fire and life safety requirements. Modular hoarding has become increasingly common in active healthcare environments because it can be reconfigured between phases without the labour cost of rebuilding traditional barriers from scratch, and the fifth edition now formally addresses how these systems should be specified and verified.

Reorganized and Expanded Annexes

The standard’s annexes were reorganized, with new informative annexes providing sample checklists and additional guidance for teams applying the standard in practice. These sample checklists are particularly useful for smaller facilities that do not have in-house standards expertise, giving them a starting template rather than requiring them to build documentation from a blank page.

How the Standard Connects to Other Canadian Standards

CSA Z317.13:22 does not operate in isolation from the broader family of healthcare facility engineering standards. It is directly referenced by CAN/CSA Z8004:22, the newer standard covering long-term care home operations and infection prevention and control, which signals a deliberate effort to align construction-phase infection control with ongoing operational IPAC requirements rather than treating them as separate silos. It also relates closely to Z317.1, the standard addressing special plumbing requirements in health care facilities, since plumbing work is one of the more common triggers for a construction-related ICRA.

Why This Cross-Referencing Matters for Long-Term Care Homes

For Ontario long-term care operators, this connection means construction oversight is not a separate compliance track from your everyday IPAC program. The same designated IPAC lead responsible for your home’s day-to-day program is expected to be involved in construction-phase risk assessment as well, under the interdisciplinary approach required by provincial regulation.

Applying the Standard by Facility Type

Acute Care Hospitals

Hospitals typically have the most sophisticated internal infrastructure for applying CSA Z317.13:22, including dedicated facilities engineering staff and established relationships with infection control. Even so, larger hospitals often benefit from third-party verification of barrier and pressure requirements on major projects, simply because internal teams are stretched across too many simultaneous projects to provide the continuous monitoring the standard implies.

Long-Term Care Homes

Long-term care homes generally have less in-house facilities engineering depth than hospitals, which makes external IPAC consulting for long-term care and retirement homes a common and practical way to apply the standard correctly on renovation or capital projects.

Dental and Outpatient Clinics

Dental practices most often encounter this standard during sterilization room renovations, office expansions, or HVAC work near clinical areas. Because these projects are typically smaller in scope, practices sometimes assume the full standard does not apply, when in fact the risk assessment and containment principles scale down proportionally rather than disappearing entirely for smaller jobs.

Veterinary Hospitals

Veterinary facilities apply the same underlying containment and risk assessment principles, adapted for animal traffic flow and species-specific waste handling, particularly relevant for infection control practices for a newly built veterinary hospital.

Common Misapplications of the Standard

Assuming Small Projects Are Exempt

The standard applies to construction, renovation, maintenance, and repair activity broadly, without a size-based exemption written into its scope. A ceiling tile replacement near a high-risk unit can trigger the same fundamental risk assessment obligation as a full wing renovation, scaled appropriately to the smaller scope of work.

Treating the ICRA as a One-Time Document Rather Than a Living Plan

Facilities sometimes complete the risk assessment at the start of a project and never revisit it, even when conditions on site change materially. The standard’s emphasis on continual improvement and documented lessons learned implies an ongoing process, not a single point-in-time exercise that gets filed away and forgotten.

Relying on Outdated Templates

Teams using ICRA and infection control plan templates built around the 2017 or earlier editions may be missing the pre-construction checklist, updated air handling requirements, and modular hoarding provisions introduced in the current edition. Reviewing your ICRA documentation against the fifth edition before your next project is a straightforward way to close this gap.

Practical Steps to Bring Your Facility Into Alignment

Audit Your Current Templates Against the Fifth Edition

Compare your existing ICRA and infection control plan templates line by line against the current standard’s requirements, noting anywhere the pre-construction checklist or updated annexes are not reflected.

Confirm Your Air Handling Equipment Meets Current Testing Requirements

If your facility owns or rents temporary negative air machines and HEPA filtration units for construction use, confirm their testing and certification documentation matches current requirements rather than assuming equipment purchased several years ago still qualifies.

Train Your Facilities and Clinical Teams on the Updated Requirements

A standard update is only useful if the people applying it day to day understand what changed. Building a short internal training session around the fifth edition’s key updates, tied to your organization’s broader ICRA process, ensures the update translates into practice rather than sitting unread in a binder.

Build External Verification Into Higher-Risk Projects

For any project affecting high-risk clinical areas, build independent verification into your plan from the outset, whether through your internal IPAC lead or an external IPAC consulting partner, so barrier and pressure requirements are confirmed by someone outside the construction team itself.

What a Pre-Construction Checklist Walkthrough Looks Like in Practice

The fifth edition’s pre-construction checklist is meant to be worked through methodically, not skimmed the day before a project starts.

Confirming Scope and Risk Class Before Design Finalization

Before drawings are finalized, the checklist expects confirmation of the project’s infection control risk class, since barrier and mechanical requirements flow directly from that classification.

Verifying Existing Building Systems

The checklist also expects a review of existing HVAC zoning and shared air handling systems near the project area, since a renovation in one wing can unintentionally affect air quality in an adjacent, unrelated space if zoning is not properly understood ahead of time.

Documenting Site Access and Egress Routes

Contractor access and material delivery routes should be documented and agreed upon before mobilization, since undocumented shortcuts through clinical corridors are a common and preventable source of containment breaches once work begins.

Confirming Emergency and Fire Safety Compatibility

Any temporary barriers or hoarding must be checked against fire and life safety requirements before installation, since the fifth edition’s updated fire and life safety provisions mean older barrier configurations may no longer be compliant even if they were acceptable under a previous edition.

The Practical Cost of Getting This Wrong

Remediation Costs Versus Prevention Costs

Facilities that discover a containment breach after the fact typically face remediation costs, including environmental testing, potential mould abatement, and extended project timelines, that dwarf the modest cost of proper barrier verification during the project itself.

Reputational and Regulatory Costs

Beyond direct remediation expense, a documented infection control breach during construction can trigger closer regulatory scrutiny on future projects, creating a longer-term cost that outlasts the original incident itself.

The Hidden Cost of Delayed Reopening

A failed clearance test after project completion delays reopening of the affected space, which carries its own financial and operational cost, particularly for revenue-generating clinical areas.

Choosing Between Internal and External ICRA Verification

When Internal Verification Is Sufficient

Facilities with a dedicated, experienced infection control practitioner and a low-risk, small-scope project can often manage ICRA verification internally, provided the practitioner has capacity separate from their other daily responsibilities.

When External Verification Adds Real Value

Higher-risk projects, larger facilities managing multiple simultaneous projects, or organizations without a dedicated internal infection control practitioner generally benefit from external verification through a service like general IPAC consulting, which provides an independent check without pulling internal clinical staff away from patient care.

Blending Both Approaches

Many facilities find a blended approach works best: internal staff handle day-to-day monitoring, while an external consultant performs periodic independent verification at key milestones, such as barrier installation and final clearance.

Training Your Team on the Fifth Edition in Practice

Building a Short Reference Guide

Rather than expecting staff to read the full standard, many facilities create a condensed internal reference guide highlighting the specific changes most relevant to their typical project types.

Running a Live Walkthrough on an Active Project

Where possible, walking a live project through the checklist with both facilities and clinical staff present builds far stronger institutional understanding than a classroom-style training session alone.

Revisiting Training After Every Major Project

Treat each completed project as a training opportunity, reviewing what worked and what did not against the standard’s requirements, so lessons genuinely carry forward to the next build rather than fading between projects.

Why Staying Current With This Standard Protects More Than Compliance

Facilities sometimes think of standard updates as a compliance exercise with limited practical impact. In reality, each revision to CSA Z317.13:22 reflects accumulated evidence about where previous editions left gaps that led to real infection events during construction activity. Treating the fifth edition as a genuine upgrade to your infection control practice, rather than a paperwork update, is what actually protects patients and residents during your next project.

FAQ

What is the current edition of CSA Z317.13? The current edition is CSA Z317.13:22, published in 2022, which is the fifth edition of the standard and supersedes the 2017, 2012, 2007, and 2003 editions. Does CSA Z317.13:22 apply to small renovation projects? Yes. The standard’s scope covers construction, renovation, maintenance, and repair activity broadly, with the risk assessment and containment requirements scaled to the size and location of the specific project. How does this standard relate to long-term care regulation in Ontario? CSA Z317.13:22 is directly referenced by CAN/CSA Z8004:22, the standard covering long-term care home operations, which ties construction-phase infection control directly to a home’s ongoing IPAC program and its designated IPAC lead. Who should be involved in applying the standard on a project? The standard is written for facility owners, infection control professionals, design consultants, and contractors jointly, meaning no single party should be solely responsible for interpreting and applying its requirements.

Not sure if your facility’s construction templates reflect the current CSA Z317.13:22 requirements?

Book a free consult with InfectionShield to have your ICRA process reviewed against the fifth edition before your next project begins.