It's your turn to comment on the proposed life safety standards

Hi folks, it's Scott Wallask up at HCPro logging in.

The Joint Commission opened its field review for the proposed life safety standards on Tuesday. You should check them out if you have the time. The final version of these standards will take effect in 2009.

I haven't had a chance to talk to any of my sources or The Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO) yet, but here are some of my initial thoughts:

• Currently, EC.5.20 (Life Safety Code compliance) has four EPs for hospitals. There are nine proposed life safety standards in the field review, with about 100 EPs. However, many of these EPs seem to stem from the current Part 3 of the Statement of Conditions, which makes me wonder whether Part 3 will simply fold into these new standards.
• The Joint Commission indicates that there is a new process under development to ensure that scoring for all of these new EPs will not result in a sudden spike in bad accreditation decisions at hospitals.
• As we first reported in early November, it does indeed appear on the surface that the building maintenance program's scoring advantages have ceased in the proposed draft.
• There are many specific references within the proposal to NFPA code requirements, which is helpful.

Let us know what you think by clicking the comments link below. I'll be digging into this topic more in our newsletter, Healthcare Life Safety Compliance.

Thanks…Scott W.

swallask@hcpro.com