By Edward M. Browne, FASHE, CHFM, CHC
Summer has ramped up in many ways here in New England. I hope all our members have found some way to decompress and get some respite, albeit briefly, from the pressures and responsibilities of this hot COVID-19 summer. You are in many cases the unsung heroes of these recent months, and I am humbled to be able to play a small part in supporting your efforts with ASHE’s help.
ASHE has created a resource page entitled Top COVID 19 Resources to assist you as health care facilities professionals in your efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The resources cover critical operations such as air quality, safety and security, emergency preparedness and infection prevention. Please bookmark this page and check back often as we continue to update this information as needed. Additionally, ASHE has created a newsletter, COVID 19 Resource Roundup, to assist health care facilities professionals in their efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This newsletter covers critical operations such as air quality, safety and security, emergency preparedness and infection prevention.
Timely and accurate data helps us all to do our jobs more effectively, and research of this nature is one of the Advocacy Team's strengths; to this end, ASHE and I would like to thank all who have participated already in the Covid Response Tactics Sharing Project. For those that have not this survey takes between 3-15 minutes to complete, depending on the complexity of surge-related activity within your hospital or firm. Individual responses will never be shared; however, members can expect a report explaining regional and national trends within two weeks of the survey close.
The ASHE Advocacy team works to provide valuable tools (over 36 published tools at last count) to its members. Check out the recently added Medical Air and Oxygen Capacity Assessment tool. During the global pandemic, many health systems and hospitals were evaluating the capacity of the medical gas system in their facilities to treat patients afflicted with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This tool was designed to help hospitals and health systems evaluate piped medical gas system capacity. The tool can show the usage of a specific medical gas system while different types of therapies are in use. Follow this link, https://www.ashe.org/medical-air-and-oxygen-capacity-assessment-tool.
Additionally the Per Disaster Critical Infrastructure Self Assessment, originally published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, can be found at this link, https://www.ashe.org/evactable.
Here is the update from the 2020 NFPA Technical Session, which wrapped up on June 26th, ASHE and I want to thank all those that participated in the virtual tech session. The three CAMs that directly impacted the health care fielded resulted in the following:
CAMs 4-1 & 4-5 – Modification to Add Coordination of “Passive Fire Protection” within Integrated Testing passed 126 votes to 38 votes. ASHE believes that this is a win because the need to coordinate the active fire protection devices with the passive fire protection elements within the integrated fire alarm testing improves the overall effectiveness of the system.
CAM 99-5 – Adding Fixtures, Furnishings and Decorations to Section 16.3 Special Hazard Protection for Flammable Liquids and Gases failed with a vote of 46 for and 97 against. The proposed text would have included this requirement in the above stated section, which would have been redundant and unnecessary and is essentially another win for the Advocacy Team since these requirements are included in other standards such as NFPA 101®, Life Safety Code® and did not need to be included in this section.
FGI – ASHE continues to work with FGI on the 2020 edition of the Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospitals. The public comment period opened July 1, 2020, and will be open until September 30, 2020. Suggestions for Beyond Fundamentals manuscripts and resources may also be submitted on this platform. Follow this FGI link to participate: https://www.fgiguidelines.net/login.
Finally some announcements: ASHE has cancelled its in-person Annual Conference & Technical Exhibition, scheduled for October 4-7 in Chicago, and will be instead holding an exciting new virtual conference. Previously, ASHE had hoped to hold an in-person event along with the virtual conference but determined after monitoring progress with Illinois’s phased reopening plan as well as CDC and local guidelines that an in-person event is not possible in 2020.
Knowing the importance of coming together this year (albeit virtually), The 2020 ASHE Virtual Conference is being hosted on October 5-7. This innovative alternative provides you with the trusted content, connections, and conversations you need to stay current with today’s health care facilities trends and challenges. Register by August 28 to get the introductory price of $149.
Also, check out the PDC Webinar series. CECs are being offered for any of the over 16 webinars available on demand.
As always I stand ready to help and support the NEHES board and our members with the latest news, tools and efforts from ASHE as we continue into the latter half of 2020. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or comments.