Dive Brief:
- The 2027 edition of the National Fire Protection Association’s Health Care Facilities Code includes significant changes to protocols for electrical systems, medical gas systems, cybersecurity and more, experts said at an information session in Minneapolis last week.
- Chad Beebe, deputy executive director for the American Society for Health Care Engineering, told a capacity crowd at the ASHE 2026 Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference that health care facilities managers should familiarize themselves with the updates to NFPA 99 even if their organizations expect to follow earlier versions of the code for the moment.
- State and local governments may force the issue by adopting portions of new NFPA codes into law or regulation, as California did with a 2024 law that requires most hospitals to install weapons detection systems at entrances by next year, Beebe said.
Dive Insight:
“When one state does something, others may follow,” Beebe said. “We’ll likely see more and more states consider these [weapons screening requirements] over the next five years.”
The California weapons screening requirement mirrors a provision in the National Fire Protection Association’s Life Safety Code, known as NFPA 101, that left hospital facility managers and administrators concerned about bulky new security infrastructure impeding traffic flows at critical access and evacuation points, Beebe said.
Beebe said ASHE representatives brought up those concerns with NFPA, leading to a “tentative” amendment to NFPA 101 in May that specified minimum door width and floor level requirements for egress corridors with fixed or portable weapons screening systems.
That experience underscores why it’s important for health care facilities managers to get involved with ASHE and other advocates with influence on code development processes, he said.
In general, staying up to date on code changes that affect hospital and clinic operations helps facility administrators and managers make better long term decisions about renovations, infrastructure investments and technology adoption, potentially reducing the regulatory burden associated with outdated or soon-to-be-outdated requirements, Beebe said. Depending on the jurisdiction, building inspectors may be willing to overlook forward-looking deviations from current codes if they don’t impact patient safety, he added.
“It's always worth a try when you're cited for something to say, ‘You know, the code is moving this way,’” Beebe said. He hastened to add, however, that this tactic doesn’t always work.
NFPA’s consensus-driven code development process can strengthen or ease prescriptive requirements based on participant feedback, Jim Peterkin, a principal with TLC Engineering Solutions and active NFPA member, told session attendees.
A case in point, he said, is an NFPA 99 update that accepts by default certain types of fire suppression equipment in MRI suites and treatment rooms. Another change eased a “random” requirement that hospitals place isolated power and telecommunications rooms at 20,000 square-foot intervals in favor of a risk- and function-informed framework, he said.
“You would have an issue where you had a hospital floor where you needed three telecommunications rooms and there wasn’t space for it,” Peterkin said.
Other notable updates in the 2027 edition of NFPA 99 include allowances for video monitoring in healthcare spaces where it does not violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or patient rights generally; stronger cybersecurity protections reflecting increased attacks through building automation systems; and requirements that health care facility electrical systems mitigate risks from fire, explosion, high temperatures and natural disasters, among other hazards, the speakers said.
