NEC 517 and NFPA 101 Health Care Occupancies

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gjhustad

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I have a question with reference to NEC 517 Health Care Facilities and NFPA 101. The definitions in the NEC 517 say the correlate with NFPA 101.

The definition of a HEALTH CARE OCCUPANCY is defined in NFPA 101 6.1.5.1 as: "An occupancy used for the purposes of medical or other treatment or care of four or more persons where such where such occupants are mostly incapable of self preservation due to ...."

Also NFPA 101 A.6.1.11.1 states that a doctors or dentists office, outpatient clinics and ambulatory, and birth centers that DO NOT provide services or treatment simultaneously to four or more patients and meet the other miscellaneous requirements are considered a BUSINESS OCCUPANCY.

This leads to my question: "Is a doctors or dentist office, birth center etc. that serves less then four patients simultaneously and meets the other requirement to be considered a business and not a health care occupancy subject to the wiring methods of NEC 517?
 
You should probably ask AHCA if these types of facilities are under their jurisdiction and then get their opinion.

Roger
 
In most cases, different occupancies are given different levels of compliance or importance by differnt agencies. No matter what a different agency's policy is, you must use the code as the code. Your jurisdiction has adopted the NEC but may not have adopted the other NFPA documents, so you need to tread lightly when considering making a modification to the adopted code. The NEC does not differentiate between how many patients may be treated before the wiring methods in 517 must be used, it simply states that wherever patients come into contact with devices such as phones, nurse calls, or are hooked up to monitoring or diagnostic machines or equipment, the provisions for patient care areas must be followed.
 
There is nothing in NEC 517 that limits it to a "Health Care Occupancy". Apparently, that is a NFPA 101 definition.

NEC 517 applies to all areas where patients are treated as described at the begining of 517.

Steve
 
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