Houston Methodist is one of the world’s top hospitals, recognized for preeminent cardiac care, an influential teaching hospital, and leading specialists in several medical disciplines. As a state-of-the-art medical center, driving industry best practice in compliance was a strategic initiative.
The Joint Commission, DNV and similar accreditation agencies have stringent compliance requirements for testing and maintenance of emergency power and backup systems. This requirement EC.02.05.07 in the Joint Commission code was one of the most frequently cited standards of non-compliance in 2013, with 23 percent of hospitals cited for non-compliance. For hospitals like Houston Methodist with sizeable campuses, compliance of EPSS systems is more complicated. Testing, reporting, and record keeping can be extremely difficult to coordinate when generators and automatic transfer switches are on the top floor of one building and in the basement of other buildings across the campus. A team of five to six people armed with clipboards and stopwatches had to walk across acres, through tunnels and up and down stairs to get from one generator to the next, taking readings and reports.
Houston Methodist needed to substantially improve this manually intensive testing process, making it more efficient and accurate with an automated EPSS compliance testing system. Houston Methodist started this journey back in 2006 when they looked into automating EPSS testing with Building Automation Systems. Like most hospitals, the equipment that made up Houston Methodist’s EPSS was installed at different times and consisted of equipment from several different manufacturers. Building Automation Systems were evaluated, but they struggled to connect this diverse set of EPSS equipment without customized SCADA development to connect each asset. Instead, Houston Methodist turned to Blue Pillar’s Aurora, a newer solution that could connect to any EPSS asset regardless of make, model, vintage, or protocol, without requiring customized SCADA development.
Through Blue Pillar, Houston Methodist quickly connected eight generators, 66 automatic transfer switches and 15 meters into a system-wide, secure network without needing any customized development. Once installed, the Aurora Energy Network of Things’ platform began working as a system of systems gathering data from all assets. This allowed real-time visibility and control, and provided remote testing and monitoring capabilities.
With this technology in place, Houston Methodist has fully automated the compliance reporting of their EPSS through a centralized, digitally-enabled platform that allows facility staff to review testing results anytime, anywhere via mobile devices or tablets. The solution reduces the time and effort required to prepare for an accreditation audit by about 1.5 hours per EPSS test. Better yet, multiple systems can be tested at the same time, and the reporting process is streamlined, consistent and accurate. As an added benefit, potential equipment failure or performance issues of the backup system are identified in time to address them, ensuring a higher level of patient health and safety.
Seven years after the initial deployment, Houston Methodist is still relying on Blue Pillar to optimize their energy management strategies.
The hospital has streamlined compliance reporting of the EPSS in six buildings and is looking at deploying the Aurora platform in others, including remote sites. As well, they hope to expand the software deployment to almost double the number of connected meters, something that will allow even more remote monitoring and access. It is a successful relationship that Houston Methodist and Blue Pillar hope to maintain for many years to come.
Houston Methodist
John Cook
