Last month all skilled nursing facilities in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, as well as across the nation, were required to have automatic fire
sprinklers installed throughout their facilities, without waivers or
exceptions, by August 13, 2013. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
(CMS) is overseeing this federal regulation that could disqualify nursing homes
from receiving Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement if they do not install the
required sprinkler systems.
Fire fatalities have been a major problem for nursing homes
for decades. The nation’s deadliest nursing home fire on record killed 72
people at the Katie Jane Nursing Home in Missouri in 1957, according to the
NFPA Journal. Many other deadly fires have ravaged healthcare facilities such
as the Golden Age Nursing Home fire in 1963 that killed 63 residents. In 1970 a law was enacted nationally to
regulate and enforce that all nursing care facilities across the country
implement the NFPA’s Life Safety Code. This law was effective in reducing
losses, the NFPA Journal reported, but there was still a significant gap in
fire protection that would become apparent.
In 2003 there were two nursing home fires, one in Hartford,
CT and one in Nashville, TN, that resulted in 31 total resident deaths. The
NFPA Journal noted that in both fires complete-coverage automatic sprinkler
systems were missing. These fires prompted the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) to investigate the need for stronger fire safety regulations in nursing
care facilities, and eventually resulted in the CMS federal regulation on
automatic sprinklers.
But are nursing home
fires really that common? Yes. “From
1994 to 1999 an average of 2,300 long term care facilities reported a
structural fire each year,” a 2004 GAO report noted. Do automatic sprinkler
systems in nursing homes really make a difference in preventing fatalities?
Yes. “There is an 82 percent reduction in the chance of death occurring in a
sprinklered building when compared to the chance of death occurring in an
unsprinklered building,” according to NFPA data cited in the GAO report. “In
addition, we note that there has never been a multiple death fire in a long
term care facility that had an automatic sprinkler system installed throughout
the facility.” 
Automatic sprinkler systems are effective in reducing
fatalities and losses because they can help limit the size of a developing fire
and prevent it from spreading.
Sprinkler systems can be especially useful in healthcare
facilities where fires often start at night when there is less facility staff
on duty. “Reliance on staff response as a key component of fire protection may
not always be realistic, particularly in an unsprinklered facility,” GAO wrote.
When there is less staff on duty, it is more difficult to fully implement the
facility’s emergency plan, especially when residents’ mobility is greatly
limited. This is where automatic sprinkler systems can help to alleviate this
heavy staff reliance, the GAO noted, and give them more time to contact
emergency personnel.
An article by the NFPA Journal said that complete-coverage
sprinkler systems help “counterbalance” the changing needs of the baby boomer
generation. Assisted living facilities
that offer a more residential feel, even having personal kitchens in resident
rooms, are becoming more popular as the baby boomer generation gets older. Sprinkler
systems can help accommodate these changing conditions and minimize damage by
containing the fires.
With the unique challenges of a skilled nursing facility,
the need for increased fire safety will become ever more important and automatic fire sprinkler
systems in Tulsa and Oklahoma City will continue to be a critical aspect of
that fire safety program.
(SOURCES: http://www.nfpa.org/newsandpublications/nfpa-journal/2013/january-february-2013/features/long-time-coming;
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-08-13/pdf/E8-18670.pdf;
http://www.ltlmagazine.com/blogs/stan-szpytek/tale-two-fires
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