Ask Your Staff About These Three Life Safety Issues

The whole door assembly (i.e., door and frame) is designed specifically to resist fire, safety consultant Steven MacArthur recently wrote on his blog, Mac's Safety Space.  MacArthur works for The Greeley Company, a division of HCPro, Inc., in Marblehead, MA.

"If there's anything at all deficient about the door, you can't be assured it will do what it needs to in the event of a fire, which is to provide a sufficient barrier between flames and occupants," he wrote.

Improperly sealed penetrations poking through barriers: Outside contractors and in-house IT teams are constantly running pipes, ducts, and cables through rated smoke and fire barriers. Those holes should be sealed with an approved firestopping product, but that doesn't always happen, Mills said.

He has been warning hospital safety professionals to keep an eye out for penetration problems. These deficiencies not only risk the safety of patients, visitors, and employees during a fire, but also raise the issue of whether hospital leaders are aware of the work being done to their buildings' fire protection features, Mills said.