September 2022
The Patriot Standard
By Dave Osborn
Owner of Patriot Medical Gas Solutions and an ASSE 6030 Medical Gas Verifier
In this article, we want to discuss the requirements and qualifications of personnel that are tasked with the maintenance and inspections of Medical Gas Equipment and Pipeline. We also would like to give a brief description of the various tasks that may be required and what credentials a person needs to complete them. Not much has changed in NFPA 99 regarding these qualifications in the last 5 editions, but the enforcement and legal ramifications has increased dramatically over the last few years. Is your facility exposed to undue risk? Do you have copies of your service providers’ credentials? Is your staff qualified to handle some or all of these tasks? These are just a few of the questions that a Director of Facilities / Engineering, a.k.a Responsible Facility Authority or RFA should be asking and checking up on regularly.
Over the years, we have seen several instances where an industrial air compressor company, an HVAC company, a plumbing company, or a mechanical contractor are called in to service medical gas source equipment such as the medical air or medical vacuum systems or the pipeline equipment like the outlets or alarm panels. While it is not completely unheard of, or impossible, most of these companies do not have ASSE 6040 or 6030 credentialed employees. NFPA 99, 2021 edition states the following: 5.1.14.2.5(A) “Persons maintaining these systems shall be qualified to perform these operations” and 5.1.14.2.5(B) “Appropriate qualification shall be demonstrated by any of the following:
- (1) A documented training program acceptable to the healthcare facility by which such persons are employed or contracted to work with specific equipment as installed in that facility.
- (2) Credentialing to the requirements of ASSE 6040, Professional Qualification Standard for Medical Gas Maintenance Personnel, and technically competent on the specific equipment as installed in that facility.
- (3) Credentialing to the requirements of ASSE 6030, Professional Qualification Standard for Medical Gas Systems Verifiers, and technically competent on the specific equipment as installed in that facility.”
You may be asking yourself how important are these credentials, and what happens if I just ignore the code? Well, to answer the question of importance, let me just point out the word “Shall”. This is a simple word, but it carries a lot of weight. You see, the NFPA 99 code book is not just a book of suggestions, it is a book that CMS, The Joint Commission, DNV Accreditation, ACCA, AHA, ASHE, ALL 50 US States, and the Federal Government all look to for the basis of their minimum standards for the Healthcare Industry. When NFPA 99 says the word “Shall” that makes it binding and no longer a “best practice”. If you are the person responsible for a healthcare facility’s Medical Gas Systems, then to answer the second question of what could or would happen if you ignored the code, you open your facility up to additional possibilities for litigation. Accusations such as, “willful and gross negligence”, or “willful disregard”, and even “willful misconduct” can not only hurt your facility financially in a lawsuit, but ramifications can reach individuals responsible for the decisions, and can permanently and irrevocably damage the facility’s reputation.
If you are a direct employee of the healthcare facility, it is perfectly fine to perform maintenance or to do daily checks and even some repairs to your Medical Gas Equipment, provided that you have gone through a documented training program that specifically trains you on the equipment installed at your facility. NFPA 99, 2021 5.1.14.4.2.5(A) qualifies this person as someone who is “qualified to perform these operations”. In plain English, if you are not trained on that system, do not work on it until you are trained. This is life safety equipment, not a bathroom sink.
As a contractor, unless you want to sit through hours of training at each facility you work in, an ASSE 6040 credential for Medical Gas Maintenance Personnel is required for you to work on this equipment. There are many options to receive the proper instructional courses to meet the requirements for taking your exam. It does not matter if you are trained by the manufacturer (compressors or vacuums), if you do not have the Medical Gas Maintenance Personnel credential (ASSE 6040), you are not qualified. By working on the Medical Gas Equipment without the proper credentials, you put your company, your customer, and yes, even yourself at risk of lawsuits
Now, it is not my intention to scare you or to question your decisions, but it is my intention to point out some of the things we see regularly within the industry and how damaging this scenario can be. I would encourage the reader to investigate and study the NFPA 99 to ensure that you are not putting yourself or your facility at risk unknowingly by performing tasks that you are not qualified for or hiring a contractor that is not properly qualified.