Fire Risk Assessment and the Effect of Emergency Planning on Risk Reduction in a Hospital

Abstract

Background and objectives: Because of dependency of patients on treatment facilities، unawareness and Movement less, fire safety is a major concern planners and users of hospitals. Establishment of an appropriate action plan could be act as vital parameter in fatalities of fire events. This study was conducted to determining fire risk level in wards of a hospital and also determining effectiveness of an emergency plan on improvement of patients and staff safety.Method: In this study, Risk assessment was conducted by fire risk assessment method engineering (FRAME) and data collection was performed by standard checklist. So, in first phase fire risk was calculated in 12 wards of a hospital and in second phase, for assessing the effect of a fire emergency plan, base on hypothesis that hospital management system, establishes a complete and obvious action plan for patients and personnel rescue, during fire events, fire risk was calculated. Results: This study revealed that in present hospital situation, fire risk level throughout all wards was more than acceptable risk level and should be recognized that minimum acceptable levels of safety in wards of hospital was not supplied. Results showed that if an integrated and performable rescue plan was afforded, fire risk level decrease up to 30 percent.Conclusion: Planning, performance and evaluation of a specific program for functioning in emergency situations have an important role in improving safety of people that are in the hospitals. Since a major portion of performance in this field is related to hospital management responsibility, management of hospital plays an essential role in loss reduction of accidents such as fire.

Keywords

• Fires
• Risk Assessment
• Fire Extinguishing Systems
• Building Codes
• Hospitals