Safety

Tip of the week: Smaller hospitals must take heed of life safety building tours

Hospital Safety Connection, April 9, 2008

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If your hospital has less than 200 beds and is accredited by The Joint Commission, you’ll eventually be getting a visit from a life safety specialist. With that in mind, don’t wait until the last minute to dig into the five standards the specialists review.
 
“Please read the standards,” said Brad Keyes, a safety consultant for The Greeley Company, a division of HCPro, Inc., in Marblehead, MA. Keyes is a former life safety specialist for The Joint Commission.
 
Before this past January 1, accredited hospitals with less than 200 beds didn’t host life safety specialists, so it’s possible these facilities are unfamiliar with in-depth life safety building tours, said Keyes, who is speaking at HCPro’s Second Annual Hospital Safety Symposium on May 8–9 in Las Vegas.
 
The life safety specialists review five specific EC standards:
  • EC.5.20 (Life Safety Code and Statement of Conditions compliance)
  • EC.5.40 (inspection of fire protection equipment)
  • EC.5.50 (interim life safety measures compliance)
  • EC.7.40 (inspection of emergency power systems)
  • EC.7.50 (inspection of medical gas and vacuum systems)
Keyes recommends that smaller hospitals carefully evaluate themselves on all the provisions of the above standards.



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