Hospitals Form Coalition To Lobby for Extensions of Seismic Safety Rules
At least eight hospital systems with facilities in California have formed a coalition to urge lawmakers to delay state-mandated seismic safety deadlines, Modern Healthcare reports.
After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, state lawmakers enacted stricter seismic safety requirements for acute-care facilities. The legislators initially set deadlines for 2008, but later pushed them back to 2013, and extended them again to 2015 or 2020 for certain facilities.
The coalition said hospitals are having trouble coming into compliance with the 2013 seismic safety standards because the recession has significantly strained their finances.
The hospital systems said they plan to pressure lawmakers this fall and spring to revise the building code requirements once more.
The coalition said it accounts for one-third of California's hospital beds. Participants include:
- Catholic Healthcare West;
- Kaiser Permanente;
- MemorialCare Health System;
- Providence Health & Services;
- Scripps Health;
- St. Joseph Health System;
- Stanford Health Care; and
- Sutter Health (Carlson, Modern Healthcare, 10/19).