The New England Regional Office and Eastern Region Office recently participated in organized fundraising walks.  RPA staff, family and friends raised a total of $3,183.  Through an employee match, RPA then donated another $1,785.  Therefore, we collectively raised $4,968 towards Parkinson’s research and support.

THE New England Regional Office, a.k.a. “The Navigators” participated in “A Walk in the Woods for Parkinson’s Disease” which was held on September 20, 2015.  The course consisted of a challenging 2-mile hike through the woods in Litchfield, CT.

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February 19, 2016

Rhode Island Healthcare Engineers Conference, “Life Safety Code® Hot Topics…Preparing for the 2012 Edition”

Speakers: Joe Beadle, CFPS, Senior Fire & Emergency Management Consultant and Nick Gabriele, CFPS, Vice President, Russell Phillips & Associates

There is much anticipation in the industry around the adoption of the 2012 Edition of the Life Safety Code by CMS and others.  This session focused on current life safety survey hot topics and how the 2012 Life Safety Code will affect the healthcare industry in the future.

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Brad Austin, Fire & Emergency Management Consultant

Brad joined RPA in 2016. After working for four years as a Fire Dispatcher at Kodak in the late 1990s, he continued his commitment to safety by serving in the role of dispatcher for the Livingston County Sheriff’s office in Geneseo, NY and as both dispatcher and EMT for the North Greece Fire District in Greece, NY. Throughout those years, Brad was also an active firefighter, often holding the rank of Assistant Chief within both the Livonia and Byron Fire Departments.

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Northwest Healthcare Response Network (NWHRN)  is partnering with consulting firm Russell Phillips & Associates (RPA) to provide Surge Capacity and Transportation Evacuation planning services at 33 hospital locations in the Puget Sound region. Every clinical area at each facility will be assessed to determine their specific surge capacity in the event of a disaster. Scenarios include: Internal Surge (fire or other disaster forcing horizontal evacuation), External Surge (receiving patients from nearby evacuating hospitals), Mass Casualty events, or Epidemic/Pandemic events. Survey results will drill down into short- and long-term capabilities to expand bed capacity along with staffing, equipment and other resources needed to accommodate a surge. Click here for the full press release.

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Over the course of 2013, RPA staff members have been presenting at conferences throughout the nation on fire safety, emergency management and life safety / code compliance. Some of these conferences include:

• EOC Summit, Cleveland, OH (April 11 & 12) – The EOC Summit is hosted by the University Hospitals Health System, with healthcare facilities from throughout the state and region attending.  In this Summit, Nick Gabriele, Paul Dzurinda and Scott Aronson presented on several topics, including:
  • Active Shooter in Healthcare as a joint presentation with Brian Heavren, Assistant Chief of Police for the Hartford (CT) Police Department.
  • NFPA 101® 2012 Edition (preparation for the future) – RPA presented a one day training/workshop on the 2012 code.
  • Neonatal and Pediatric Evacuation – Planning and operations for a full building evacuation of neonatal and pediatric intensive care areas.
  • OR Fire Exercises – Outcomes from and approaches to run a large scale OR and PACU evacuation drill / exercise using a program conducted for a large academic medical center (780 beds).

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RPA has partnered with the Avila Institute of Gerontology to provide a “best practices” customizable EOP for long term care facility members of Avila.  This EOP and the processes associated with customizing the plans for the healthcare facilities will be presented at two workshops in New York and Ohio.  View the brochure

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While the healthcare industry continues to work to adopt the 2012 Life Safety Code®, the NFPA 101 Technical Committee on Health Care Occupancies held a meeting in June of 2013 covering the 2nd Revisions to the 2015 Code.  Here are some items that may be included in the 2015 Life Safety Code® (Note: these items are not final as they need to go through balloting and member voting in June 2014):

• The 2015 LSC may permit exit doors to be painted with murals in certain situations.  We commonly see this in dementia units.  Some AHJs permit it while others have not.  One of the criteria to permit this will include reference of the doors in the facility fire procedure and staff training.
• Labs may no longer be referenced in the hazardous areas list of Chapters 18 & 19.  Rather, there will be references to NFPA 99 and NFPA 45.
• Smoke compartments in new and existing hospitals may increase to 40,000 sq. ft.  The 200 ft. travel distance will continue to apply.  Therefore, unless it is a very unusual design scenario, this would increase a smoke compartment to 40,000 sq. ft.  This should not be used a method to remove multiple smoke barriers in the future.  However, it does provide some leniency for facilities in unique situations.  The rationale for this change could be applicable to equivalency requests for oversized smoke compartments.
  • A comparison of the design guidelines for hospital spaces from 1996 to 2010 was completed.  It shows how much more space is required today vs. in the 90’s resulting in a lesser occupant load per smoke compartment.
  Back in 2009, the LSC included a 12 year phased in sprinkler requirement for high rise (75 ft. or higher) healthcare facilities (including hospitals).  In 2012, the code kept the 12 year language.  However, it stipulated that if you were in a jurisdiction that adopted the 2009 LSC, you really only have 9 years.  The 2015 LSC is similar by saying that you have 6 years to be fully sprinklered if your jurisdiction applied the 2009 LSC.  In most cases, once CMS adopts the 2012 LSC, high rise hospitals (since nursing homes should all be sprinklered shortly) will require full sprinkler protection in 12 years. Chapter 20 and 21 (Ambulatory) may be their own stand-alone chapters vs. referencing much of their info from Business Occupancies.

  It is important to note that it may be a decade or more before this edition is adopted by CMS and other accrediting bodies with Deemed Status.  However, there are two (2) more immediate applications:

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Read about the involvement of RPA team members in Hurricane Sandy as they worked together with the State of Connecticut Department of Public Health and the Connecticut Long Term Care Mutual Aid Plan (LTC-MAP) to prepare for the potential evaucation of thousands of New York City nursing home patients.  Click here to learn more.

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On May 24, 2012, Scott Aronson, Principal of Russell Phillips & Associates, presented at the UASI conference. This conference has the goal of addressing the unique multi-disciplinary emergency management planning, operations, equipment, training and exercises to meet the needs of high-threat level and high density urban areas. The presentation was on bringing public and private partnerships between hospitals, long term care, public health departments, emergency management, and fire/police/emergency medical agencies in supporting healthcare evacuations and continuity of operations through Hospital/Long Term Care Mutual Aid Plans.

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Dave Walker has joined the Russell Phillips & Associates team and is serving clients as a Fire & Emergency Management Consultant out of the Eastern Region office. He served thirty years as Assistant Chief for the North Greece Fire District in Rochester, NY and was previously a member of the RPA team from 1983 to 1987. Dave holds numerous state and national certifications through New York State, the National Fire Academy, and the National Pro Board (International Accreditation for Fire Service Organizations).

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RPA recently had TV crews observing training and interviewing team members and hospital staff at MidState Medical Center, a Hartford Healthcare Partner. Click the link below to see the clip of the news coverage for RPA in action providing fire response training.

Click here to read more.

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Paul Dzurinda joined Russell Phillips & Associates and is serving clients as a Fire & Emergency Management Consultant out of the Ohio office. Paul served as the Director of Facilities Compliance for the Cleveland Clinic Health System and, for over a decade, he has been specializing in safety regulations, code compliance, and standards compliance / interpretation. In his role with the Cleveland Clinic Health System, Paul was responsible for survey preparation, training/education, construction/ renovation drawing reviews, and the process of commissioning construction/renovation projects at health care facilities throughout the country (over 23 million square feet of property). Paul has experience working with the entire spectrum of healthcare related occupancies including large academic medical centers, ambulatory surgery centers, and medical office buildings.

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On January 9, 2012 Scott Aronson, Principal of Russell Phillips & Associates, presented at the LeadingAge State Executives Meeting in Miami, FL. Scott presented on the experiences using the Russell Phillips & Associates www.mutualaidplan.org Emergency Reporting System during four (4) 2011 disaster response events in MA and CT including the Springfield tornados, Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene and Storm Alfred (“Halloween Storm”).

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