About Medical Gas Emergency Planning
When a healthcare facility stores and uses medical gas, workers must be aware of safety issues and be prepared to react during an emergency, such as a sudden gas leak.
It’s crucial for people to know how to handle and use medical gas systems safely and recognize emerging problems that could jeopardize patient safety. Accordingly, a medical gas emergency plan includes all the protocols your team must thoroughly understand and follow to mitigate hazards if something goes wrong.
Medical gas emergencies impact patient safety, especially individuals who are immobile, unconscious or in a weak state because of illness, injury or while recuperating from a procedure.
Healthcare facilities routinely administer gases in a wide range of procedures, including carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitrous oxide to manage patient pain, offer respiratory support or provide anesthesia.
Potential risks and consequences of medical gas emergencies include:
- Hazardous gas leaks into the environment, potentially harming workers and patients
- Nitrous oxide leaks can lead to asphyxiating people
- An oxygen leak increases the potential for a catastrophic fire
- Improper handling of a medical gas system can result in contamination that may compromise gas purity (which is particularly harmful to patients with weakened immunity)
What are the key regulatory frameworks governing medical gas safety?
Medical organizations are responsible for adhering to all regulations regarding medical gas safety to protect patients, workers, visitors and the community.
For an overview, the regulatory landscape includes the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and state-specific regulations.
Key Components of a Medical Gas Emergency Plan
In health care facilities, essential elements of a medical gas emergency plan include critical components such as:
- Alarms: Medical gas emergency alarms will alert staff, patients and visitors about an immediate danger in the area.
- Shut-off valves: The staff must quickly find and activate the shut-off valve near a medical gas outlet to stop a leak.
- Backup systems: If a crucial gas system needs to go offline because of a leak in the gas supply or a medical gas valve failure, your facility will need to use backup systems to enable ongoing patient support while you address the emergency.
- Comprehensive training : Given the potential hazards involved in working with medical gas, extensive training plays a crucial role in emergency preparedness for any facility that relies on a gas supply to help with patient care, such as medical oxygen or medical air.
Your staff must know how to react quickly in an emergency, such as identifying labeled medical gas pipelines and containers so they can be aware of what gas or gases they are dealing with.
Furthermore, emergency shut-off systems contribute to safety by enabling staff to immediately stop gas flow and avoid fire, contamination and threats to people’s health.
Preparing Hospitals for Medical Gas Emergencies
Hospitals can effectively prepare for medical gas emergencies by devising customized strategies for risk assessment and mitigation in consultation with gas system professionals. For example, they should conduct a safety audit for medical gases, touring the facility and verifying the state of their medical gas systems, including the pipes, shut-off valves and alarm system.
Workers must be prepared to evacuate patients from an area experiencing a leak or gas system malfunction and monitor their health after exposure to leaking gas.
Hospitals must take medical gas emergencies into account during infrastructure planning to support emergency preparedness. That is, during construction, your architect should know how to incorporate medical gas safety into the hospital design phase. The same goes for any facility upgrades you are planning.
Training and Compliance for Emergency Response Teams
To promote fire safety in a healthcare facility that uses medical gas cylinders, the healthcare staff must undergo specialized training to effectively perform their emergency response duties.
But after training, you cannot relax your guard. Regulatory updates impact training and compliance, so your team must be aware of changes that will affect how they should respond during emergencies.
Best practices for maintaining compliance with gas safety regulations include:
- Consulting with medical gas industry experts
- Hiring safety managers with extensive experience in managing medical gas systems
- Reinforcing the importance of complying with safety regulations when you recruit and onboard new employees
Requirements and Compliance in Medical Gas Safety
What are the requirements for medical gas safety in healthcare facilities?
Health care facilities must follow established criteria to prepare for, assess, respond to, mitigate and recover from medical gas-related emergencies. They need to conduct ongoing risk assessments and identify any vulnerabilities in their system, such as from natural disasters, equipment failure and other emergencies. Facility owners and managers must also develop a detailed emergency response plan specific to their organization’s gas systems.
Medical gas safety is governed by standards from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), particularly NFPA 99: Health Care Facilities Code. For fire safety reasons, only properly trained, authorized technicians should handle medical gas installation and maintenance tasks.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which protects workers in America, outlines safety requirements for handling and storing compressed gases. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the purity and labeling of medical gases to ensure patient and healthcare worker safety.
Hospitals ensure compliance with compressed gas regulations by providing ongoing training to staff on proper handling and testing their knowledge of how to respond in emergencies. You also should conduct inspections, such as with the assistance of Evergreen Medical Services. Doing so is particularly important when you are installing new medical gas system equipment.
What are the implications of noncompliance for healthcare facilities?
Noncompliance would leave you unable to be fully prepared to respond during an emergency that threatens patient and worker health and safety. You won’t be able to recover properly from emergencies.
Remember that non-compliance with NFPA 99 can have serious legal, financial, operational and reputational implications for healthcare facilities. Given the risks, it’s prudent to get help from third-party experts, such as the team at Evergreen Medical Services.
Evergreen Medical Services Is Your One-Stop Shop for Medical Gas Emergency Preparedness
Because of the potential dangers of medical gas systems in healthcare facilities, such as a failure in the medical gas pipeline system, a natural disaster or other emergency, you must develop an effective medical gas emergency plan to ensure everyone’s safety.
You can improve your emergency preparedness by assigning staff members to keep on top of medical facility best practices and regulations. Ongoing training is essential. Regular evaluations of your response plans will improve your ability to mitigate hazardous situations stemming from your medical gas systems.
Many medical organizations find it best to partner with third-party experts. Evergreen Medical Services is standing by to help you with customized medical gas system emergency preparedness and medical gas testing.