By Dan Hounsell, Senior Editor

Managing barriers in healthcare facilities can be challenging. There are a multitude of processes related to barriers, and in any given week, a variety of trades and hospital personnel interact with these building components. Then there are the compliance considerations.

Unfortunately, in many healthcare facilities, the approach to handling barrier compliance issues is reactive, which often is more costly and does not create an accurate picture of the work needed to comply with codes and other requirements.

To ensure the compliance and performance of barriers in their facilities, managers need to take ownership of their rated barriers instead of leaving it to others to manage. As attendees of a session on barrier management at ASHE’s Health Care Facilities Innovations Conference in Anaheim learned, the process involves identifying the tools and resources needed to implement an effective program because poorly maintained barriers can lead to additional work, expenses and even potential loss of accreditation.

Embracing barriers 

Barrier management in healthcare facilities involves a range of building components and activities, including cable management, curtain walls, and mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. The process is critical, however, because it limits the spread of fire, complements automatic sprinklers, minimizes the risk to patients and staff, minimizes property loss, and supports a defend-in-place approach.

Even in facilities with automatic fire suppression systems, passive containment provided by barriers is necessary because of toxic smoke, toxic gases, black smoke, and hydrochloric acid steam. 

Related: What Fire Sprinklers and Alarms are the Best for Hospitals

Joshua Brackett, who is corporate regulatory director with Banner Health in Arkansas, oversees 12 hospitals. He says that paying too little attention to barrier compliance is likely to come back to haunt them.

"It’s not a question of if,” he says. “It's a question of when. When it happens, did you do what you were supposed to have done?"

The consensus among the session’s panelists was that this mindset is crucial for healthcare facilities managers because even if a fire-related incident was not caused by or related to facilities, the department will receive the blame for it.

Training for success 

One strategy that panelists emphasized for barrier management and compliance is training that reinforces the organization’s fire-safety-related policies and procedures. 

"People need to understand there is a policy and there is a reason for the policy," says Russell Harbaugh, area director of support services with St. Luke’s Health System.

In one instance, Harbaugh says his department needed to reduce spending on firestop management, so to bring his in-house staff up to speed in these areas, the department hired contractors to help in-house staff inspecting and sealing penetrations. The collaborative effort included firestop training for in-house personnel. One result of the effort was spending less on barrier and firestop activities, says Harbaugh.

The program also included training hospital staff to seek out contractors to ask barrier-compliance questions and point out potential problems.

“We had to have a facilities person trained in firestops walk the site to ensure compliance by contractors,” Harbaugh says.

For facility managers looking to further expand their departments’ in-house knowledge on the topic, he suggested that managers take the same training as contractors. 

Harbaugh also suggested that managers seeking additional funding for their facilities’ barrier and firestop management activities need to use words and phrases that catch the attention of the organization’s executives, who often are attuned to the legal and financial impact of non-compliance.

Says Harbaugh, “Mentioning life safety opens up a lot of doors and checkbooks."

Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.