While 2022 was light in terms of health care documents scheduled for debate at the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Technical Meeting June 8-9, it still proved to be a successful meeting for the American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE) Advocacy Team.
The advocacy team’s behind-the-scenes work over the past several years — including committee membership and collaboration with other organizations — has helped to reduce the number of issues that needed to be addressed at the annual technical meeting. However, there were still several challenges presented by NFPA 25, Standard for the Inspection, Testing, and Maintenance of Water-Based Fire Protection Systems that drew the team’s attention.
Fortunately, rather than debating the issues on the floor, the ASHE Advocacy Team was able to orchestrate discussions between key groups that included both opponents and proponents on several aspects and help come to consensus with parties involved. A transcript of the full meeting is available.
As follow-up to those discussions, the ASHE Advocacy team says that it plans to partner with ASHE members in doing the necessary “homework” of collecting health care facilities data that will help to influence future code development. ASHE says it will release more information about this initiative soon.
Complete results of the meeting have been posted on the NFPA website.
Advocacy landscape in 2023
As the ASHE Advocacy Team celebrates this year’s progress, it is also preparing for next year’s meeting. The 2023 NFPA Technical Meeting is set to address the next editions of NFPA 99, Health Care Facilities Code and NFPA 101®, Life Safety Code®.
ASHE is encouraging its members to partner in the code development process and start making plans now to attend the NFPA Conference & Expo in Las Vegas June 19-21, 2023. To participate in the technical meeting, attendees must register for NFPA membership at least 180 days before the conference. Also, membership is free for qualified students and apprentices.
To get a preview of the expected changes to NFPA 99 and NFPA 101, be sure to register for the ASHE Annual Conference held in Boston July 17-20 and attend the Monday morning concurrent session “What’s the Latest with NFPA 101 and 99?”
The session will be led by Chad Beebe, deputy executive director, ASHE; Jonathan Hart, technical lead, NFPA; and Dave Dagenais, senior director of plant operations, clinical engineering, emergency management and safety officer at Wentworth—Douglass Hospital.
