Health Care Facility - School Nurse

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We had better rewire our shop bathroom because we keep a first aid kit in there, and Oh crap...My office has a first aid kit too. On another note the lobby at our local YMCA and the local library better be rewired because they give out flu shots there. Oh and the county over needs to have redundant grounds on their parking lot lights for the drive up flu shots.;)

I don't think a nurses office is a 517 room just because the apply first aid or administer medication. What procedure could be done by a school nurse that couldn't be done by the football coach in the locker room?
 
chris

if the plans showed an exam room in a nurses office in a school and showed a 517.13 wiring method what would you do?
 
If the approved plans show it then you would have to, but what about a nurses office on approved plans that doesn't show a 517.13 wiring method? Then would you just do it?
 
romeo said:
How does treating a bloody knee or scalp differ from drawing blood?
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It is a matter of who causes the break in the skin, and whether that process is a skilled task.
 
charlie b said:

It is a matter of who causes the break in the skin, and whether that process is a skilled task.
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And how did you determine that? :confused:

I agree with Chris, going only by the NEC definition it could be a health care facility.

However I also agree with Jim D, the NEC should not be deciding the classification.
 
charlie b said:
I can not say for certain. But I would say that ?checking pulse and measuring blood pressure? are on opposite sides of that line from ?drawing blood and giving injections.?
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I agree. Drawing blood and giving injections are invasive procedures. A redundant grounding path would be required. Why? Because a small amount of current existing could cause the patient and/or nurse to react by flinching which could cause the nurse to inflict quite a bit of pain with her hypodermic needle. Redundant grounding is intended to minimize this effect. :smile:
 
I am confused, are the needles to draw blood need to be plugged in now? and how does a needle have anything to do with redundant grounding
 
mpd said:
I am confused, are the needles to draw blood need to be plugged in now? and how does a needle have anything to do with redundant grounding
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Very good point. It's late in the day...perhaps I should see a nurse myself. :grin: The only point I was trying to make was if there was an actual electro-medical device in use, the redundant path would be required.....my bad. :smile:
 
The child is in nurses room and 911 is called because she/he thinks help is needed.Medics now arive.What if they need power ?Lets spend a few extra dollars on this multi million dollar job and be over kill.If it saves one life was it worth it
 
if the engineer calls for it to be wired by 517 than so be it..other wise treat it like any other office room because the nurses station is first to go in reallocation of office space..
 
You may want to look over NFPA 99. It deals with Health Care Facilities and although it is not the electrical code, I believe it is referenced in the fine print notes of the electrical code. It even discusses the different levels of emergency power required for different levels of care (acute, invasive, non-invasive, etc).

I won't make the call on your situation, but I just thought this may confuse the issue even more.

It is an exiting read, ha ha.
 
well the subcode official is asking for the nurse's room in a school to be wired as per 517. I don't want to do it, don't think it is required, but will probably end up doing it.
 
The subcode official??? what..are they an inspector? designing engineer or their project manager? I believe unless they carry some sort of power like either that I have menitoned it is not their call..
 
Nurses office

Nurses office

What's the most convervative approach here. If we call the nurses office a general patient care area/examination room(not saying we should), we need a light on critical power do we not. No receptacles on emerg are required - right!

Wouldn't the best we could do at a typical school be to put a light on LS. And if so, does a light on life safety meet the requirement of having one on the critical branch? I wouldn't think so.

Is anyone advocating putting in a Critical ATS and associated system for this one light in the nurses office?

Also, what is the intent of the code here. If you're poking someone with a needle, you want a light that will stay on - for sure.

But if the most invasive thing your doing is taking a blood pressure, where's the hazard of not having a critical circuit?

I think a life safety light makes some sense - do that and call it a day I'd think.

Mike
 
Some observations...

When I last picked up one of my kids from the nurse's office, the bed they were laying in had a modular headwall unit, just like at a hospital.

They give eye exams in the school nurse's office, and we wire eye doctor's exam rooms to 517

Injuries that require first aid are treated in the nurse's office in much the same manner that the same injury would be treated in an ER.

I can see this one going either way. I happen to think it's a 517 location until proven otherwise. A medical exam room is still a medical exam room, regardless of the level of medical care that may or may not be given in that room. It's a room purposely built for medical care reasons. The fact that similar medical care might be given in the boys locker room is more of a coincidence than a purpose built design.
 
mdshunk said:
It's a room purposely built for medical care reasons.
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If the room contains a "headwall" it is easy to assume it is intended for medical care. But what if the only way you know it is a "nurse's" office is because of the lettering on that area of the blueprint?
 
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