When patients and doctors are dependent upon medical gas equipment for their safety, nothing becomes more important than ensuring said equipment is functioning perfectly. EMGS, Inc. offers risk assessment services and consulting to your hospital personnel. We can carefully craft a user-friendly report to provide to your staff displaying the potential hazards and failures of the equipment they are in charge of maintaining. This report will document the common causes of equipment issues, and the control measures that can be put in place to prevent these issues. We will also show who is typically ..read more

Waste anesthetic gas disposal is used in healthcare facilities to evacuate rogue anesthesia gases during procedures on patient undergoing anesthesia. This protects both the staff and patient from a potentially dangerous build of these gases in a space like an operating room. NFPA 99 defines it in Chapter 3 (2018 edition ref. 3.3.181) as: “The process of capturing and carrying away gases vented from the patient breathing circuit during the normal operation of gas anesthesia or analgesia equipment.” WAGD may also go by the acronym “AGSS” (anesthetic gas scavenging system) and inlets installed i ..read more

NOTE: All references are taken from NFPA 99 – 2012 edition, this is an update from the original post which was made on September 3rd, 2015 There seems to be much confusion over the requirements set out by NFPA 99 for existing facilities vs. those for new construction / renovation work.  The 2012 edition of NFPA 99 has done a great deal to help bring more clarity to this issue. 5.1.1.5 Subsection 5.1.2 through 5.1.12.3.14.5 and 5.1.14.4.2 shall apply to new health care facilities or facilities making changes that alter the piping. 5.1.1.6 Paragraph 5.1.14.4.3 through 5.1.14.4.9 and 5.1.13 ..read more

[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” av_uid=’av-kiaerl0j’ admin_preview_bg=”] Calibration of CO (Carbon Monoxide) Monitors for Medical Air Systems [/av_textblock] [av_image src=’https://dev-emgsi.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/13693ED9-5783-4C9D-92D9-9DFDB30505FF_1_105_c.jpeg’ attachment=’4181′ attachment_size=’full’ align=’center’ styling=” hover=” link=” target=” caption=” font_size=” appearance=” overlay_opacity=’0.4′ overlay_color=’#000000′ overlay_text_color=’#ffffff’ copyright=” animation=’no-animation’ av_ui ..read more

Failure of critical medical gas and vacuum systems definitely leads to a stressful situation.  For this reason medical gas and vacuum equipment must be is redundant to prevent a catastrophic failure to the patient care environment.  However, there are always situations where the redundancy may not be sufficient.  Recently, we had a situation where a facility had a quadruplex medical vacuum system that needed 2 of its 4 pumps to maintain a sufficient vacuum.  One of the 4 pumps had been down for over a month waiting on repairs by another medical gas company.  During tha ..read more

Medical air is one of the most crucial medical gases serving an NFPA 99 Category 1 facility or space. It is typically responsible for keeping ventilators and blenders running and downtime of any length is simply not acceptable.   When work must be performed on the air compressor source, especially within the control panel, power may have to be disrupted to safely complete that job. One way that EMGS helps ensure that the medical air supply remains uninterrupted is to provide a back feed manifold setup located just downstream of the medical air dryers but upstream of the source valve (or ..read more

NOTE: All references taken from NFPA 99 – 2012 edition We get this question from customers with medical gas manifolds installed outdoors sometimes. NFPA 99 addresses this question directly in chapter 11 where it talks about protecting gas cylinders stored outdoors: Note: sub-paragraph (3) 11.6.5.4 Cylinders stored in the open shall be protected as follows: (1) Against extremes of weather and from the ground beneath to prevent rusting (2) During winter, against accumulations of ice or snow (3) During summer, screened against continuous exposure to direct rays of the sun in those localities wher ..read more

There are two types of zone valve references that address labeling in NFPA 99 (2012 edition). One is for new construction projects which is located here: 5.1.4.8.8 Zone valves shall be labeled in accordance with 5.1.11.2. 5.1.11.2 Shutoff Valves. 5.1.11.2.1 Shutoff valves shall be identified with the following: (1) Name or chemical symbol for the specific medical gas or vacuum system (2) Room or areas served (3) Caution to not close or open the valve except in emergency 5.1.11.2.2 Where positive pressure gas piping systems operate at pressures other than the standard gauge pressure of 3 ..read more

Our 2013 Medical Gas Expo & Educational Seminar was a huge success! It was held at the AmericasMart in Atlanta, GA on March 21st. Over 40 hospital personnel, engineers, and other medical industry professionals were in attendance. President and CEO of EMGS, Tot Darden presented on the 2012 edition NFPA 99 code changes. Guest speaker Jaime Valdivia with NITC spoke on the ASSE credentialing standards. Jaime has 29 years of experience as a craftsman of the plumbing and pipefitting industry. He has held a medical gas installer credential since 1987 by completing a four year apprenticeship progr ..read more