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Building on its successful risk-based approach, the 2015 edition of NFPA 99: Health Care Facilities code improves usability for better health care safety.

This edition provides performance criteria for health care facilities that builds on the risk-based approach introduced in the 2012 NFPA 99, where it is the risk posed to patients and staff, not the type of building, that defines safety guidelines. Provisions govern installation, inspection, testing, maintenance, performance, and safe facilities, material, equipment, and appliances - including medical gas and vacuum systems formerly found in NFPA 99C (This content can be found in Chapters 1-5 of the 2015 NFPA 99).

Major changes in the 2015 NFPA 99 make performance criteria more usabile enforceable, and adoptable:

• Requirements correlate with the 2014 NFPA 70® National Electrical Code®.
• New provisions address using fuel cell systems for backup power, allowing the use of new technology while ensuring the same minimum level of safety.
• Type 3 Essential Electrical System requirements have been removed from NFPA 99 - deferring to other codes for required egress lighting.
• Updated requirements for nurse call systems incorporate widely used terminology and align with the Facility Guidelines Institute (FGI).