COMPANY
Stormont Vail Health
OBJECTIVE
To upgrade the Fire Alarm system at Stormont Vail’s primary care clinic at 901/904 Garfield Ave. to a more modern solution that improved day-to-day functionality and user-friendliness, and minimized disruption.
SOLUTION
Tech Electronics upgraded the customer to the Notifier Trifecta, featuring the Inspire fire alarm control panel, Connected Life Safety Services (CLSS) Gateway, and Self-Test series of detectors.
Stormont Vail Health is a medical facility and integrated healthcare system based in Topeka Kansas that serves Shawnee County and the northeast Kansas region. Founded in 1949 as the Stormont-Vail Regional Medical Center, the complex now includes a nonprofit, 586-bed acute care hospital, and a large network of primary and specialty healthcare clinics throughout the area.
The clinic in was operating on an older fire alarm control panel from a manufacturer that no longer exists. The panel was originally chosen because it cooperated with older detectors which were a carry-over from the building’s previous fire alarm system. Stormont Vail were beginning to experience repeated issues with the panel, but fortunately had budgeted to replace it as the system was nearing the end of its life cycle. When Stormont Vail approached Tech Electronics for a solution, rather than merely upgrading the clinic’s fire alarm to a newer, similar panel, Tech suggested an alternative: Notifier’s Trifecta suite of offerings was not only an immediate fix for an obsolete system, but a scalable, adaptable long-term solution.
Tech Electronics replaced the outdated panel with the Inspire panel, which apart from improved overall functionality, also features a graphical user interface for increased user-friendliness. In addition, the connected gateway allows authorized users to have offsite visibility using a cloud application, and receive push notifications with relevant alerts.
Perhaps even more impactful is the addition of the Self-Test detectors. The inspections and testing process for a fire alarm system can be notably disruptive, particularly in a healthcare environment where patient care comes first and foremost.
The health system not only leveraged the trifecta as a solution for the clinic but also understand the application, equipment, features, and savings before considering deployment in the main hospital. This approach allows both Tech Electronics and Stormont Vail to tailor an installation strategy and budget to most rapidly realize the Trifecta’s benefits in Stormont Vail’s standard operating procedures.
“With the Self-Test detectors, you aren’t required to manually perform a functional smoke-entry test,” Director of Fire Systems Susan Gehring said. “Since the detector can do that automatically, you are only required to conduct a basic visual inspection, which is much less disruptive and time-consuming. In our initial testing as part of the system commissioning process, I would estimate we had about a 40% time saving overall as a result. By just about any standard, that’s a huge success. This clinic is across the street from the main hospital and we were looking at this as an opportunity to gather information and see how this technology might perform across more of our buildings. In the current testing process for our surgical suites, a lot of times we’re going in and testing at one or two o’clock in the morning. You wait and try to catch an empty room so that you can test in it, knowing that you still might get interrupted. If technology like this can keep us from being there all night and taking multiple days for testing, that’s a win.
The implementation was very smooth. Tech worked seamlessly with the electrical contractor on the project, and the entire process of installation and testing only took a couple of days. I was impressed by the fact that they had personnel in from out of town specifically to make sure things got done without a hitch, and they delivered.
Beyond that, there were unforeseen challenges that made our project a bit more complex for Tech than originally anticipated. Despite that, they showed flexibility and managed to keep our costs right in the ballpark of what we were originally quoted.”
