by Brianna Crandall — August 19, 2015—For facilities managers in hospital and health-care settings, the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) announced at its annual conference that it is collaborating with independent healthcare certification provider The Joint Commission to provide resources and tools to help hospitals comply with life safety and environment-of-care requirements.
“The facility and building systems play a vital role in creating the healing environment,” said ASHE Senior Executive Director Dale Woodin, CHFM, FASHE. “Consistent compliance with the environment-of-care and life safety standards is an excellent indicator [of] high reliability in building systems. ASHE is proud to collaborate with the Joint Commission to provide focused tools and resources to assist organizations in achieving compliance and high reliability.”
The Joint Commission has identified its top eight physical environment standards that are frequently cited during surveys of hospitals and other health-care facilities. Through their collaboration, ASHE and the Joint Commission will be providing resources that help facilities professionals keep their organizations in compliance with these challenging standards.
In response to customer needs, the Joint Commission has created the online Physical Environment Portal to house its resources related to these top issues. ASHE will be providing resources—including tools, best practices, and technical documents—on its new Focus on Compliance Web page.
Every two months, ASHE and the Joint Commission will focus on a new standard, with the previous information archived on this page to create a library of compliance resources. The following schedule outlines when resources will be available for each of the eight standards.
- July 2015: Introduction and announcement of collaboration
- August/September 2015: Utility systems (EC.02.05.01)
- October/November 2015: Means of egress (LS.02.01.20)
- December/January 2016: Built environment (EC.02.06.01)
- February/March 2016: Fire protection (EC.02.03.05)
- April/May 2016: General requirements (LS.02.01.10)
- June/July 2016: Life safety protection (LS.02.01.30)
- August/September 2016: Automated suppression systems (LS.02.01.35)
- October/November 2016: Hazardous materials and waste management (EC.02.02.01)
Each module is readily available at no charge to anyone seeking this information, notes ASHE.
