All Entries Tagged With: "means of egress"
There’s a light, a certain kind of light – and it’s not an oncoming train!
This one has the potential to be the game-changer we’ve been hoping (waiting) for – the emergence of the 2012 edition of the Life Safety Code® as a CMS-sanctioned regulatory standard.
Once you lay your hands on this plucky little document - the official CMS memorandum – you will see that it appears) to represent a fair degree of flexibility when it comes to, among other things, corridor storage, and the amount of combustible decorations that are allowed. One thing this likely means is that everyone’s going to be inundating NFPA for their own personal copy of the 2012 Life Safety Code® – this is going to become a go-to resource from here on out.
Now, the first thing you will notice is that there’s a lot of mention of nursing homes, and not so much of hospitals, particularly on Page 1. To that end, let me direct you toward the bottom of page 2 of the document (under the section titled “Effective Date”), which specifically indicates that the memorandum and all its components are “in effect for all applicable healthcare facilities such as Hospitals and Nursing Homes.”
The other caveat, at least for the moment, is that it appears that the changes are only “accessible” through the CMS waiver request process, which will, in turn, result in a process in which “each waiver request will have to be evaluated separately in the interest of fire safety and to ensure that the facility has followed all LSC requirements and the equipment has been installed properly by the facility.” I’m not entirely certain whether this would drive anything more than a review of the waiver request, but I’m not entirely certain how they’d be able to ensure compliance with LSC requirements, etc., without eyeballing a facility. That said, there’s a whole heck of a lot of hospitals that would be pursuing this, so maybe there’s a process in place, maybe based on past TJC/DNV/HFAP and/or CMS survey results.
So, what it looks like we have here is some room for stuff in the corridors, including fixed furniture; and the presence of combustible decorations on “walls, doors and ceilings.”
That’s enough yapping from me for the moment; I encourage you to check out the document and let us know what you think. I think it’s very interesting.
Perform ILSM assessments even for minor route disruptions
I heard from a hospital a while back that was bringing in new MRI equipment nears its ED entrance. A question came up about whether the organization could stop people from entering [more]
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