The recent Medicare cuts have many facility managers and property managers on edge about how tight the budgets will be to maintain their healthcare facilities. Will the Facilities and Maintenance Departments take the first hit?
How can you keep your building safe when your budget has been cut?
One of our biggest initiatives in 2013 is to work closely with hospitals and nursing homes and help them create a true maintenance plan for their passive protection systems – from dampers, to fire & smoke doors, to maintaining your fire walls through firestopping, this maintenance is require by state and local building codes and mandated by your AHJ (including the Joint Commission). Unfortunately, the passive fire protection system is one of the most neglected systems in your building and likely the one in need of the most attention.
In the event of a fire, the safety of the building and of the occupants relies on the fire protection system, which consists of both active and passive fire protection. An active fire protection system is designed to detect and suppress a fire by triggering smoke detectors, fire sprinklers and through the use of fire extinguishers. The passive fire protection system is part of the building’s overall construction and is meant to work in tangent with the building’s active fire protection system. This system works to slow the spread of fire and smoke through a building with use of fire and smoke barriers to compartmentalize and contain fire to a specific area. Through use of fire rated walls, ceilings and floors in combination with firestopping materials, fire and smoke dampers and fire and smoke doors , this system allows the fire to be contained so fire fighters can concentrate on a fire before it has the ability to spread to other areas of the building. In essence, your facility is only fully protected from the risk of fire when these two systems are working together, if one is working and not the other, your facility is at risk.
As with any system that assures reliability, it is important that these systems are properly maintained to make sure they are working as intended. Many strides have been taken over the years by the NFPA and national building codes to require the inspection and maintenance of fire protection systems and in most instances, the active fire protection systems seem to be in relatively good shape. Fire sprinklers and alarm systems are being properly maintained with accurate maintenance records and mandated regularly by Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJ’s). What many people don’t realize is that by only maintaining the active fire protection side of the system and neglecting the passive fire protection system, you are, essentially, rendering the entire fire protection system of your building useless and making your facility extremely vulnerable to loss from fire.
We don’t want to see the maintenance of your passive fire protection put off (or forgotten about all together) in order to save money for other things in your facility. LSS has created a service plan made specifically for healthcare facilities that will allow you to spread your payments out and lock in 2013 prices over the next three years. Please, take your passive fire protection system as seriously as we do. Should a fire break out in your facility, your guests will be sure to thank you for it.
