Hospitals are covered under the OSHA/NFPA 70E requirements.  Arc flash/blast incidents can cause severe employee injury and loss of electrical power to key functions of patient care, while the cost of injury treatment may exceed $1,000,000 per case with permanent disability and probable litigation.  As one Director of hospital engineering services recently told us, “There are systems in the hospital that we just can’t shut down, and must perform our inspections on live parts.”

We recently published an article on our website in which we continue to recommend the rigorous analysis prescribed by IEEE 1584, and warn against “quickie” or generic 70E arc flash solutions. An industrial facility asked IESO to evaluate arc flash results from another firm that reportedly used a customized program for arc flash analysis.  The facility management was concerned about the lack of time the consultant spent on-site, the minimal review of electrical components and the generic results.  Our review revealed highly inaccurate information on 90% of the labels including incident energy ratings underestimated by 200-450%, clearly endangering employee safety.

A qualified expert should perform an arc flash hazard study, label all affected equipment, integrate arc flash safety into your organization safety program and conduct arc flash safety training for all affected employees including energized work permit programs, PPE requirements and rated tool requirements.  Beware of “in-and-out” site visits, over-the-phone analysis or fill-in-the-blank programs.  With arc flash, one size most definitely does not fit all.

The advantages to our services are numerous.  Included in our arc flash studies is a comprehensive hazard and flash threshold report with full one-line schematics reflecting complete component and arc flash information.  We do it right.  Please review and download our Healthcare Arc Flash Alert for the latest information.

Last 6 posts by admin

• IESO Presenting at Clean Gulf Conference - October 26th, 2011
• The Free "OSHA in Healthcare" Webinar - October 14th, 2011
• IESO Presenting at AOHP 2011 Conference - September 26th, 2011
• Arc Flash Train-the-Trainer Course - September 13th, 2011
• IESO Presenting at 2011 PureSafety Conference - August 2nd, 2011
• IESO Presenting at the 2011 TN Safety Congress - July 25th, 2011

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