Note: These requirements are intended for the defend in place requirements of the
health care occupancy where staff need to know what is happening so they can give
direction to those who need it. Patients are considered to be in need of help for
evacuation and evacuation itself will only happen as a last effort.
a. Provide audible notification appliances to be heard in all locations throughout the
protected premises from where staff must respond. This may include more than one
building if the number of staff within the building is not adequate. For health care,
nursing ward areas should be utilized for responders since areas other than nursing
wards (administration areas) will generally be occupied only during the day shift.
1) Do not locate audible notification appliances within surgical operating rooms.
2) Provide subdued audible notification appliances in critical care areas.
b. Provide visible notification appliances in the following areas:
Note: Strobes provide very little help to staff as far as response. Strobes can only help
the staff by alerting them to move to a location where a message or code can be
obtained which would provide useful information.
1) Spaces subject to noise, such as mechanical equipment rooms, where the
message delivered by the audible appliance could not be heard or would be
unintelligible.
2) Public restrooms.
3) Public accessible areas of the building such as corridors, auditoriums, cafeterias,
open assembly rooms >= 750 ft2, canteens, retail stores, etc. Exception: Visible
notification appliances are not required in the following spaces which are not
considered to be public accessible:
a) Individual office spaces unless the space is known to have a hearing impaired
person stationed there.
b) Closets (janitor's/clothes etc.)
c) Utility shafts.
d) Crawl spaces.
e) Normally unoccupied rooms <= 100 ft2.
f) Normally unoccupied storage spaces where no regular activities take place
other than retrieval and placement of storage.
g) Stairway enclosures and elevators.
4) Do not provide visible notification appliances inside critical care areas, surgical
operating rooms, or patient sleeping rooms.
- 24 -
Previous Page
