Consulting-Specifying Engineer - December 2007 - (Page 50) Codes & Standards NFPA 99 also requires HVAC systems that support anesthetizing areas to automatically vent smoke and products of combustion, and to prevent smoke recirculation to any of the rooms that the particular system serves. In order to perform this function, HVAC systems must be organized in a way where they can exhaust contaminated air outdoors, when needed. If the system cannot be configured in this way, the anesthetizing locations will need to be continuously exhausted, while outdoor air then becomes the supply air. Also, although beyond the scope of this article, don’t overlook Chapters 7 through 10 of NFPA 99, which address the equipment and materials that make up these systems. Defining the application After becoming familiar with the engineered systems and other pertinent details, the application must be addressed. Hospitals are the primary target of NFPA 99, followed by laboratories, nursing homes, limited care facilities, home care, hyperbaric facilities, and freestanding birthing centers. As is crucial to the successful implementation of every standard, the most important point to make to engineers is that they read the standard. Yes, read it— cover to cover—and the state and local codes that complement it as well. There is no substitute for taking the time to become familiar with the details including the context in which requirements are defined, such as proposed versus adopted changes. Bringing NFPA 99 up to date The standard’s current edition, released in 2005, reveals some significant changes in systems design. For example, NFPA 99 now allows a building automation system (BAS) to be used as one of the two required master alarm panels in a healthcare facility. In the past, designers typically placed one master alarm panel near the security desk in a hospital’s emergency department and the other next to the facility’s telephone operators, both loca- annexes that had not been referenced for tions typically staffed 24/7. Allowing the over a decade. With the dramatic changes use of BAS as one of the panels would in healthcare technology, electronic mediappear to be a design breakthrough for cal records, natural disasters and a sicker the specifying engineer, but implement- patient population, NFPA 99 needs to be ing this allowance isn’t as simple as it reinvented to fit this modern-day delivery seems. For example, the power source system.” (“Restructuring NFPA 99,” NFPA and wiring arrangement between various Journal, Sept./Oct. 2007) sensors and the BAS computer must be The focus of the restructuring lies in configured as though the computer were the hands of NFPA 99’s TCs, which will an independent master alarm panel. iron out the details of each subject matThe second significant modification ter within the document’s scope. Here is involves treating nitrogen like instru- a look at how some of these committees ment air—i.e., medical support gas or are taking shape: utilities—rather than treating it like • TC on Fundamentals. Previously oxygen, medical-surgical compressed air, called TC on Administration, this comnitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide, all of mittee will now also be responsible for which are considered pharmaceuticals for determining the relative risk level of patient care applications. various medical procedures in order to One other change in the 2005 edition specify the level of service, in addition is a list of allowable configurations of to existing responsibilities. manifold assemblies using cylinders As healthcare evolves, codes and standards holding gas under must follow suit; a comprehensive restructuring h i g h p r e s s u r e , of the NFPA 99 standard is currently underway in containers hold- anticipation of the 2010 edition. ing liquid under high pressure and hybrids of cylinders and containers. The • TC on Medical Equipment. This new good news is that system configurations committee will merge the existing TC on are now more flexible to fit any appliElectrical Equipment with the TC on Gas cation. The bad news, however, is that Delivery Equipment. the design effort now becomes more • TC on Electrical Systems. This cominvolved in order to help the owner mittee will expand its scope by adding achieve the safest and most economical electrical power and low voltage systems, system configuration. including electronic information data bases. Diagnosis: a need for change • TC on Mechanical Systems. This new As health care technology evolves, committee will address existing perforindustry codes and standards must follow mance operations, testing, and maintesuit. And so, a comprehensive restructur- nance requirements for air quality failing of NFPA 99, including the scope and ure management criteria, in addition to membership of its technical committees addressing temperature and humidity (TC), is underway. The restructuring pro- control and critical space pressure relacess began in 2006 and concludes with its tionships for infection control water and next edition in 2010. wastewater. “The radical changes were necessary as • TC on Emergency Management and NFPA 99 is a 25-year-old document that Security. This committee will expand its was a compilation of even older stan- scope to include security issues in healthdards,” said Technical Correlating Commit- care facilities as well. tee chair Douglas S. Erickson. “In reviewing Look for some major changes to the the document, there were chapters and NFPA standard in 2010. 50 Consulting-Specifying Engineer • DECEMBER 2007
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