scope:

Preface

NFPA 99, Health Care Facilities Code, applies to a wide range of systems, equipment, and planning specific to buildings or portions of buildings in which various levels of health care are provided to patients. These facilities range from hospitals, ambulatory health care centers, and clinics to medical and dental offices, nursing homes, and limited care facilities. NFPA 99 includes provisions for patient care areas (e.g., wards, intensive care units, operating suites, and hyperbaric facilities), several facility-wide systems, and overall emergency planning for a facility in the event of an emergency (fire or otherwise) that interrupts the delivery of patient care.

This tenth edition of the Health Care Facilities Code Handbook has been developed to add to the store of knowledge on health care fire safety and to serve as a useful resource for all those who are involved in protecting health care facilities from fire and associated hazards. NFPA 99, now into its fourth decade, is the result of the integration of 12 documents developed over a 40-year period by the Health Care Facilities Correlating Committee (formerly the Committee on Hospitals).

The 2012 edition of NFPA 99 represented a major milestone in the history of the document. All the occupancy chapters were removed, along with the chapter on laboratories. A new Chapter 4 established four "risk categories." The higher the risk of losing a system, the more stringent the requirements are to assure that the system is not lost. This change meant that the application of NFPA 99 was no longer based on the name of the facility but, rather, on the facility management conducting a risk assessment and assigning a category to the different systems within the facility.

The 2015 edition of the code has built on the risk-based approach to encompass more than just facility systems, so that more of the code requirements can truly be based on the risk to patients, staff, and caregivers. No large structural changes have been made for this edition, but numerous technical changes have been made throughout the document. These changes, as well as the reasoning behind them, are highlighted by each "Code Update" feature in Part 1 of the handbook, and they are explained in more detail in Supplement 6 in Part 2.

Codes and standards by themselves can be difficult to understand for those not involved in their development, and code handbooks present another vehicle for helping readers to better understand the requirements and recommendations of a document. The purpose of this handbook is to provide the user with insight as to why the code requirements are included and how compliance with them can be achieved. NFPA 99 is developed by experts representing the many varying interest categories involved with health care facilities and their systems and equipment. The better the requirements of the code are understood, applied, and enforced, the better protected patients, caregivers, and visitors will be in health care facilities.