Compliance News: TJC Revisits EC Plans
By David Stymiest, PE, CHFM, CHSP, FASHE
A recent article placed in both the EC News and TJC Perspectives clarified TJC requirements for management plans. Written for the June 2013 issues by TJC Department of Engineering Director George Mills for the Clarifications and Expectations segment of both publications, the article clarified some issues that have been resulting in TJC requirements for improvement (RFIs) during survey.
Compliance News: Reducing Emergency Power Vulnerabilities
By David Stymiest, PE, CHFM, CHSP, FASHE
Healthcare facility emergency power systems are held to a very high standard. They are expected to deliver power to what they must, when they must, for as long as they must. A review of some medical journals will find references to clinical expectations for “uninterrupted power supply” and similar phrases. In fact uninterrupted power is not guaranteed despite the misconceptions of some clinical personnel. Hospital power systems are not as robust as large data center power systems, and even data center power systems sometimes fail. But healthcare facilities can take steps to reduce the probability of emergency power failures.
Firstly it is helpful to understand the differences between reliability, availability and dependability. Reliability can be considered the probability that a system operates and gives the same result on successive trials. Availability on the other hand can be considered the probability that a system will function at any instant required, including the next instant, and for as long as required from that point. And finally dependability can be considered as the metric that measures availability, reliability & maintenance support.
