January 2018 — Health Care Properties Quarterly —
Page 15
www.crej.comSite selection
Development
Real Estate Investment
Energy Planning & Analysis
Facility Assessment
Facility Operations and Maintenance Planning
Healthcare Construction <$1M - $500M +
mortenson.com/healthcareUCHealth Eye Center
Saint Joseph Hospital
Poudre Valley Hospital NICU
Lutheran Medical Center
CU Sports Medicine & Performance Center
T
here has been a significant
change in how health care
is managed over the last five
to 10 years. Hospitals have
evolved from handling emer-
gency and inpatient care to a more
mixed-use health care campus,
focused on wellness and outpatient
services in addition to their core
service offerings. Today, patients
might visit a health care campus for
a weekly physical therapy appoint-
ment, an MRI or even to take a pre-
op course designed to instruct future
patients on aftercare requirements.
The focus of the health care campus
has shifted to be a comprehensive
hub that provides a variety of ser-
vices.
As one could imagine, this shift
has changed the way design and
engineering professionals configure
and equip health care campuses.
Fire and life safety design might not
seem as fascinating as engineering a
parking structure, but it’s vital to the
one thing that is always the top pri-
ority in a health care setting – safety.
Up until the last decade, fire and
life safety engineering services with-
in a health care setting were primar-
ily concerned with adhering to vari-
ous federal, state and local codes, as
well as compliance agencies. Now,
fire and life safety engineers also
have to consider the vast health care
campus that provides an assortment
of services, each with its own set of
regulations. Code and compliance
requirements vary for each area of
the campus. It is essential that the
campus is interconnected for patient
and employee ease in maneuvering.
This transition to a mixed-use
health care campus requires fire and
life safety engi-
neers to develop
creative solutions
to address sections
of the facility dif-
ferently based on
whether it is an
outpatient service,
administrative
floor, education
classroom or emer-
gency services.
Each use case
requires different
fire and life safety
solutions.
The role of fire and life safety
engineers is a delicate dance
between maintaining the aesthetic
and utility of a structure, with
modifying the design to safeguard
against potential hazards. In a
mixed-use health care setting, it is
important to develop solutions and
educate the design team without
diminishing the intent and spirit
of the campus. A good fire and life
safety engineer will take a consulta-
tive role to acknowledge and work
within each discipline associated
with a campus.
Fire Protection Architecture
When developing solutions to
address the complex nature of
health care campuses, fire and life
safety engineers combine the fol-
lowing professional disciplines
to effectively manage mixed-use
health projects: fire protection, fire
protection engineering, architec-
ture and politics. Knowing fire and
human behavior provides the nec-
essary foundation for fire and life
safety engineers to compartmen-
talize and suppress. Fire protection
provides a high-level view of what
can be expected during a fire and
how to properly prepare staff with
evacuation tools and fire prevention
programs.
Fire protection engineering mar-
ries science and engineering prin-
ciples to protect people and environ-
ments from the destructive effects
of fire and smoke. In a medical
campus, where some occupants are
mostly incapable of self-preserva-
tion, the planning and coordination
of smoke compartments is vital to
ensuring patient safety. In addition
to designing the appropriate smoke
barriers to limit the size of the com-
partments the supporting fire pro-
tection, mechanical and egress sys-
tems also must be considered.
When smoke control systems are
required, such as in atrium spaces,
the systems are a significant part
of health care facilities’ fire safety
considerations. The systems are
designed to allow the appropriate
time for hospital staff to coordinate
patient evacuation, without risking
the health and safety of patients and
staff. Smoke management is often
one of the more complicated aspects
of fire and life safety engineering,
and even more so when handling a
health campus with varied service
offerings. Coordinating mechanical
and electrical controls is essential to
ensure the systems operate properly
to achieve the life safety goals of the
protected spaces.
Health care campus design, layout,
space planning and construction
requires the consultative role of a
professional fire and life safety engi-
neer to keep with the overall vision
of the project, while addressing
proper safety and regulatory con-
cerns. Working within the planned
architecture and use of the spaces,
the engineer provides guidance and
design of the many interrelated fire
protection and life safety systems
to ensure that the often challenging
code requirement of those systems
are satisfied.
As an example, it is often neces-
sary to separate the different uses
of a space with fire-resistive-rated
construction serving as either fire
or smoke barriers. While building
a wall is not a challenging design
task, coordinating the location of the
required walls while providing open
and inviting access to all of the adja-
cent spaces requires the experience
and creative thinking that a fire and
life safety engineer can provide.
Health care facilities are subject
to the scrutiny of multiple entities,
including local, state, federal and
private accreditation authorities.
These entities rarely, if ever, operate
or enforce the same edition or have
the same interpretation of the appli-
cable codes and standards. The fire
and life safety professional brings
clarity to the code application pro-
cess.
Architecture and eloquence are
mixed arts, whose end is sometimes
beauty and sometimes use. Due to
the nature of the mixed-use health
care campus, it is critical for the fire
and life safety engineers to carry
out the vision of stakeholders while
allowing the environments to oper-
ate safely without an interruption in
care and service.
▲
Fire and life safety – architecture and eloquenceEngineering
Todd Brand
Associate fire
protection engineer,
BCER Engineering
Inc., Arvada