Sprinklers play a crucial role in maintaining the fire safety of healthcare environments. They aren't just components of a building's infrastructure—they're life-saving systems designed to minimize fire damage and protect vulnerable populations.
Lighting is a necessity in a healthcare setting at all times, not just during an emergency. When a power outage or other crisis takes out everyday lighting, you and everyone in the building should be confident that the emergency lights will come on quickly and without fuss.
Fire safety is a critical concern, especially in high-risk environments like operating rooms, where multiple ignition sources and flammable materials can create significant hazards.
One of the less frequently occurring conditions (at least in healthcare circles) is instances of fire alarm/suppression systems impairments that require implementation of a fire watch.
This is Part 2 of our interview with Scott Wytosick, CFPS, CFI-II, a life safety expert and consultant with Jensen Hughes in Independence, Ohio, on how to prepare your HVAC ahead of smoke—and how to keep it running once the smoke has arrived.
It seems that lately I’ve run into too many instances in which critical infrastructure components have failed because they have reached the end of their useful life and there’s insufficient strategic planning to ensure that systems are sufficiently robust and well-maintained to ensure that...
Regular trash is bad enough, but the things that laboratories throw out are dangerous as well as egregious: used needles and sharps, body fluids, caustic chemicals, and items that will burst into flames in the right conditions. Lab staff can be injured by improper disposal of chemical waste, but...
During a fire, it’s not just the flames you need to worry about. Most fire deaths are due to smoke inhalation, and inside a hospital, nursing home, or clinic, there are plenty of patients who are extra sensitive to changes in air quality. While the wildfires in Los Angeles this January were...
With everything going on in the world in terms of project funding—not just in healthcare, but pretty much any and every environment—I recognize that remaining optimistic can seem to be something of a fool’s errand, but for the folks responsible for ensuring the safest possible environment for...
It seems to me that I’ve been looking at a lot of survey findings lately and there appears to be a strong undercurrent of findings that might or might not represent actual deficiencies in the physical environment.
