Hard pipe life safety and critical care. Interpretation.

[82angelfan]

NEC code 517.30 states branch life safety and critical branch systems in "patient care spaces" need to be physically protected. Forget exceptions for now.


NFPA 99 defines Patient Care Spaces as any space where patients are to be examined or treated. Wouldn't this exclude places like hallways, equipment rooms, common spaces, nurse stations?

Opinions please.

 

[roger]

Actually it refers to all areas and then says in patient care areas it must comply with 517.13(A) & (B)

 

[hornetd]

NEC code 517.30 states branch life safety and critical branch systems in "patient care spaces" need to be physically protected. Forget exceptions for now.


NFPA 99 defines Patient Care Spaces as any space where patients are to be examined or treated. Wouldn't this exclude places like hallways, equipment rooms, common spaces, nurse stations?

Opinions please.

Actually patients are only examined or treated in hallways and similar spaces under disaster conditions. If it becomes too common an occurrence the Joint Committee, which is the organization that evaluates hospitals' compliance with standards of care and many other aspects of their operations, will tear them down to an uncertified facility but give them a short time to correct the situation without loosing their accreditation. All Federal money is withdrawn from a hospital that is decertified. For a hospital operating on a non profit model that is often the point of bankruptcy. That is why a hospital will go on bypass to ambulances forcing them to take their patients to another hospital until they have been able to make actual patient care beds in patient care areas available to receive additional patients. Some hospitals abuse the bypass status to compensate for understaffing done to reduce costs. When public ambulance services catch them at that they are often forced onto a rotation status with each of several adjacent hospitals taking patients in turn to even out the work load. That usually requires the intervention of the State Board of Medical Quality Assurance or some similar body that can force the nonperforming hospital to change their ways.

 

[82angelfan]

Actually it refers to all areas and then says in patient care areas it must comply with 517.13(A) & (B)

Yes, I was purposely misreading it to support my own intentions. Damn. Running conduit in a pony walls sucks.

 

[82angelfan]

Actually patients are only examined or treated in hallways and similar spaces under disaster conditions. If it becomes too common an occurrence the Joint Committee, which is the organization that evaluates hospitals' compliance with standards of care and many other aspects of their operations, will tear them down to an uncertified facility but give them a short time to correct the situation without loosing their accreditation. All Federal money is withdrawn from a hospital that is decertified. For a hospital operating on a non profit model that is often the point of bankruptcy. That is why a hospital will go on bypass to ambulances forcing them to take their patients to another hospital until they have been able to make actual patient care beds in patient care areas available to receive additional patients. Some hospitals abuse the bypass status to compensate for understaffing done to reduce costs. When public ambulance services catch them at that they are often forced onto a rotation status with each of several adjacent hospitals taking patients in turn to even out the work load. That usually requires the intervention of the State Board of Medical Quality Assurance or some similar body that can force the nonperforming hospital to change their ways.

Totally unrelated to the question but related to your reply.

At the height of the covid chaos I was doing a project re-modeling the CAT Scans in the ER of a hospital. The halls would be lined with gurneys, Sometimes first responders would be there for 20 hours waiting for there patients to get processed in. We would be working next to sick patients. This violated our company and union exposure policies at the time. One person complained to union rep, union rep came to investigate, contacted state health board. The state health board "somebody" flew in, discovered that the hospital had an entire two story wing of hospital dark (old pediatrics department, closed but still fully supplied including it's own ambulance entrance). The state threatened to have funding pulled if they didn't staff a dedicated a covid department immediately. This hospital group that manages this facility and close to 100 others nation wide is notoriously cheap. My project was shut down for two weeks. When we returned the ER was back to business as usual. They are not the reginal trauma 1 center so it was very tame thereafter that.

 

[hornetd]

Totally unrelated to the question but related to your reply.

At the height of the covid chaos I was doing a project re-modeling the CAT Scans in the ER of a hospital. The halls would be lined with gurneys, Sometimes first responders would be there for 20 hours waiting for there patients to get processed in. We would be working next to sick patients. This violated our company and union exposure policies at the time. One person complained to union rep, union rep came to investigate, contacted state health board. The state health board "somebody" flew in, discovered that the hospital had an entire two story wing of hospital dark (old pediatrics department, closed but still fully supplied including it's own ambulance entrance). The state threatened to have funding pulled if they didn't staff a dedicated a COVID department immediately. This hospital group that manages this facility and close to 100 others nation wide is notoriously cheap. My project was shut down for two weeks. When we returned the ER was back to business as usual. They are not the regional trauma 1 center so it was very tame thereafter that.

As I already said hospital emergency departments that cheat on ambulance bypass protocols catch it in the neck when they get caught. I strongly suspect that large hospital chains, like the one you describe, would be much more likely to try to misuse overloading prevention practices for purely financial reasons.

Tom Horne