VHES Meeting Report – May 11, 2007

Vermont Healthcare Engineers Society held its regular scheduled meeting on Friday, May 11, 2007, at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, in Bennington, Vermont.

The educational component of our meeting consisted of presentations dealing with NFPA 99, Standard for Health Care Facilities and NFPA 101, Life Safety Code.

The eighteen attendees were delighted and enlightened by the joint presentation of these two important codes by two of our very close colleagues. Ray Forsell, CCE, P.E. focused on NFPA 99 while Gene Cable, FPE, P.E. focused on NFPA 101.

Ray, a long time member and past Chapter President of VHES, is a Clinical Engineer with The Technical Services Program at The University of Vermont. Ray has, and continues to also work with several Vermont based Healthcare Organizations, helping them prepare for compliance review inspections as well as with their fire safety training programs.

Gene, a Fire Prevention Engineer, while not a member of VHES, is a member of The Mass Society for Healthcare Engineers’ and an active member and board advisor with NEHES where he serves as NFPA Liaison. Gene has also worked for many years with a number of the Vermont Healthcare Organizations preparing them for compliance review inspections. Gene is employed by The Department of Veteran Affairs, as Regional Safety & Fire Protection Engineer, in Albany, New York.

Due to the subject matter and the outstanding opportunity presented by these two great presenters, the presentation continued through lunch with a session of questions and answers.

Following the program/lunch we went on to our business meeting where the business of the chapter was conducted. Reports were given on upcoming events with VHES, NEHES and ASHE. The state of the chapter web site was discussed, membership was reported to be on the increase and help was asked to continue the growth/strength we are experiencing as a chapter.

The schedule of our next meeting will be moved to Friday, July 20th because of the number of members who will be attending the ASHE Annual Conference in New Orleans and not returning in time to make the previously scheduled July 13th meeting. The July 20th meeting will be hosted by Northwestern Vermont Regional Hospital, St. Albans, Vermont, where the educational component will be CHFM exam prep...

Respectfully submitted,

R. Brian Sallisky, CHFM
VHES Vice-President