FGI Bulletin #17

FGI Releases Emergency Conditions White Paper

This past year has been challenging for many in the health care industry, particularly those providing hands-on care, but it also presented difficulties for those who plan and design health and residential care facilities. Our evolving understanding of the virus required decisions to be made at a rapid pace and in real time. As data was collected and more was learned about how COVID-19 is transmitted, determining appropriate interventions to protect staff, residents, and patients felt like a moving target. On top of all that, the added element of quarantine suddenly placed many individuals in a balancing act of working, parenting, and providing other caregiving from home.

It was in this environment that more than 130 volunteers, many of whom were working on the frontlines of the pandemic, agreed to serve on an Emergency Conditions Committee. Formed at the request of FGI’s Board of Directors, the committee was established to respond to an influx of requests for practical guidance on setting up temporary facilities and adapting existing facilities to meet the particular needs of the pandemic. This stellar group of volunteers gave freely of their time, expertise, and experience, resulting in the development of “Guidance for Designing Health and Residential Care Facilities that Respond and Adapt to Emergency Conditions,” a white paper aimed at helping health and residential care organizations respond to emergency events and plan mitigation strategies in anticipation of future events.

This white paper covers the expansive topics of risk assessment, surge capacity, alternate care sites, modular facilities, operational considerations, resiliency, renovation and future facility design, small and/or rural health care facilities, and residential care facilities. A wide range of temporary and long-term solutions for design and operation of health and residential care facilities are identified, informed both by lessons learned from previous local and national emergencies and practices currently being implemented in the field.

The final section of the white paper presents the draft of a new Guidelines document: the proposed Guidelines for Emergency Conditions in Health and Residential Care Facilities. Recommended changes written by each subcommittee have been aggregated into one supplemental document that suggests new minimum standards for emergency preparedness. Being released with the white paper is a downloadable compliance matrix created to help health and residential care organizations select alternate care sites based on the anticipated timeframe of an emergency and the building systems required to support patient and resident care.

FGI extends our deepest appreciation to each member of the Emergency Conditions Committee for volunteering to draft this much-needed guidance during an ongoing pandemic. Of this monumental effort, FGI President Ken Cates shares, “On behalf of the FGI Board of Directors, I extend our gratitude to all of the people who have worked on these documents. With the use of this information, we will be better prepared to handle future emergencies and assure improved outcomes for patients, residents, and caregivers.”

The white paper and compliance matrix are available for free download in our resources library.

Comment Period Opens for Draft Emergency Conditions Guidelines

Following FGI’s standards development process, the requirements and recommendations in the draft Guidelines for Emergency Conditions in Health and Residential Care Facilities are open to public comment for a three-month period from April 1 through June 30, 2021. Gathering input from the health and residential care community is a crucial step—particularly for a new standard—in developing the FGI Guidelines documents.

FGI encourages all users of the Guidelines to carefully review the proposed new standard for emergency conditions in the last section of the white paper, “Guidance for Designing Health and Residential Care Facilities that Respond and Adapt to Emergency Conditions,” and provide detailed feedback during the comment period. Comments on the draft may be submitted at https://emergencyconditions.fgiguidelines.net.

Those who participated in the 2022 Guidelines proposal or comment periods will recognize the online platform for submitting comments on the draft; users who created an account during the 2022 Guidelines revision cycle will be able to log in with their same username and password.

All comments on the draft Guidelines for Emergency Conditions in Health and Residential Care Facilities will be reviewed by the steering committee of the Emergency Conditions Committee. Those that are accepted will be incorporated in the new standard, planned for release with the 2022 edition of the Guidelines for Design and Construction documents.

FGI and IES Announce Memorandum of Understanding

FGI is has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) formally recognizing a long-standing relationship and strengthening future collaboration. FGI and IES have agreed to encourage coordination between the organization’s documents where appropriate and, when mutually beneficial, to create joint documents, share in educational opportunities, designate committee representatives, and advocate for each other’s organization.

IES seeks to improve the lighted environment by bringing together those with lighting knowledge to translate that expertise into actions that benefit the public. FGI and IES have similar approaches to engaging with industry experts to develop and update building and design standards through consensus-based processes, advised by research and experience. Of the collaborative possibilities, FGI CEO Doug Erickson shared, “Lighting design in health care buildings is fundamental to the human experience in these facilities. FGI is delighted by the opportunity to bring attention and clarity to the impact of lighting on health care delivery as reflected in the Guidelines.”

More information about IES can be found at https://www.ies.org.

ANSI/ASHRAE/ASHE Standard 170-2021 Released

The 2021 edition of ANSI/ASHRAE/ASHE Standard 170: Ventilation for Health Care Facilities has been released by ASHRAE and is available for purchase at https://www.techstreet.com/ashrae/standards/ashrae-170-2021?product_id=2212971. Users of the 2018 Hospital and Outpatient Guidelines documents will recognize Standard 170-2017 as the referenced standard for ventilation in these facility types. Standard 170 is a continuous maintenance document, and the 2021 edition incorporates Standard 170-2017 and its published addenda. Also note that an errata sheet for Standard 170-2021 that corrects two cross-references to the 2018 Outpatient Guidelines was released on March 26, 2021; it can be downloaded from http://www.ashrae.org/standards-errata.