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Happy Holidays from ISHE
We wish you a safe and happy holiday season. Thank you for everything you have done to support healthcare in Indiana this year.
ISHE is reenergized and has great plans in store for 2013. Below is a partial calendar of events and dates for the year. We'll follow up early next year with more details, but in the meantime please save these dates on your calendar.
ISHE 2013 Calendar
January
17th Board Meeting
February
21st Board Meeting
March
Purdue – ISHE Education Event
April
18th Board Meeting
May
10th and 11th Hillrom Spring Meeting
June
20th Board Meeting
July
Summer Meeting in the South
August
Summer Meeting in the North
September
TBD
October
17th Board Meeting
November
6th – 8th Midwest Healthcare Conference
6th – Winter Meeting at Conference
December
19th Board Meeting
Urgent: Your Input Needed
ISDH's Todd W. Hite, P.E., Program Director, Health Care Engineering reports that the Indiana State Department of Health has received a request from CMS on the number of high-rise hospitals in Indiana. The reason for the request is so that CMS can make a decision on the 2012 NFPA 101 consideration. ISDH does not currently record this information, so he hopes that the ISHE membership can give them a good estimate to report back.
See the info requested in the selection of the email below. The requested information is due by January 2, 2012. Please send your information to Todd at <Thite@isdh.IN.gov>, and he will then place it in a table to send to the proper authority. If you have any questions, you can reach Todd at 317-233-7166.
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CMS Central Office is requesting information about the sprinkler status of health care occupancies that are located in High Rise Buildings (defined as 75 feet above lowest level of Fire Department access) in each of the 50 States. Please read Marty Casey’s e-mail below. This information is needed by the CMS Central Office for their evaluation of possibly adopting the 2012 LSC. The request has been marked as urgent and there is a short time frame to answer.
Bruce W. Wexelberg
Safety Engineer
Chicago Region V
From: Casey, Martin (CMS/OCSQ)
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2012 2:31 PM
To: Cc: Merrill, James J. (CMS/OCSQ)
Subject: Urgent Request for Information: Number of Sprinklered High-rise Hospitals - Due Date: January 2, 2012
All Regional Offices:
Central Office is evaluating the 2012 edition of the NFPA Life Safety Code for possible adoption. This process involves evaluating the changes in the Code from the 2000 edition.
The 2012 edition has new provisions that require existing high-rise buildings (i.e., buildings greater than 75 feet above the lowest level of fire department vehicle access) that contain health care occupancies to be protected throughout by an approved, supervised automatic sprinkler system (see Section 19.4.2).
In order to determine the implications of this new provision, Central Office requires the assistance of the Regional Offices. Please contact each of your State Agencies and request the following information for each State:
Number of Existing High-rise Buildings that Contain Certified Hospitals
Square Footage of Unsprinklered Areas
Fully Sprinklered* NA
Partially Sprinklered*
Un-Sprinklered
TOTAL
*Approved, supervised, automatic sprinkler system in accordance with NFPA 13.
If this information is not readily available, we ask that each SA make an approximation.
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Advocating for Our Profession
With ongoing developments in healthcare legislation in Indiana and nationally, legislative advocacy is more important than ever. ASHE's advocacy program represents the interests of members by monitoring the regulatory environment and advocating for the development of responsible codes and standards. We will follow with more information about the advocacy efforts in 2013, but in the meantime we encourage you to learn more at http://www.ashe.org/advocacy/.
Four Sustainability Practices That Cut Hospital Costs
Implementing four sustainability interventions nationwide could save hospitals as much as $15 billion over a decade, a new Commonwealth Fund study finds. Susan Kaplan of the University of Illinois-Chicago and colleagues examined several hospitals that had recently taken various sustainable measures. They identified four cost-saving sustainability practices implemented at the hospitals:
• Reducing energy use;
• Reducing waste through recycling and better segregation of medical waste;
• Switching from single-use devices to reprocessed devices in the OR; and
• Reformulating OR supply "packs."
After accounting for initial infrastructure investments, hospitals implementing energy-savings interventions saved an average of 72 cents per square foot over five years. (The total square footage of U.S. hospitals in 2010 was an estimated 2.24 billion square feet, a number that grows by about 42 million square feet each year.)
Learn more >>
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