Saturday, May 29, 2010

Compliance News: NFPA® Codes Available On-Line (Free)

By Pete Kendrick, CHFM, CPMM


Have you ever desired to review a National Fire Protection Association (NFPA®) code that is not part of your facility library? If so, it might be useful to know that you can do so for free on the NFPA® website, and the service is available to both members and non-members. There are some limitations which will be addressed below, but here is how to find a code. Let’s look up NFPA 99 Standard for Healthcare Facilities just for fun.

First, go to the website at http://www.nfpa.org/. Click on Codes & Standards which is just below the “sign-in” box. On the left you will see a second link for a “List of NFPA codes & standards” and you should select that. For an example, scroll down and click on NFPA 99 under the Code No. in the center of the page. Select “View the document online (read only).”


At this point click on the View 2005 edition online and if you are a member, log in. If you are “Not registered with NFPA,” click on “Create Account” and fill out the information they are requesting, including the fact that you are agreeing to their terms for accessing the online document(s). You will then get an email with a link that allows you to download Real Reader (it’s free) so you can actually see the code online. Then click on “Open NFPA 99: Standard for Health Care Facilities, 2005 Edition.”

You can either scroll through every page or click the TOC tab to open the table of contents. Click on the chapter covering the information you are looking for. While you cannot search, cut, paste or print, you will still have access to recent editions of the code you need to reference. If you need a copy of a single page you can make a screen shot and print that one page of the code for a hard copy.

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