Pandemic, Seismic Compliance and Disaster Preparedness

August 14, 2020

Unprecedented, COVID-19, and quarantine are words that have trended across platforms throughout 2020 as the pandemic has become a reality affecting every facet of life and business for each of us. While social distancing and attempts to keep up with the advice of medical experts along with ever-changing regulations coming from government authorities monopolize our time there is a need to look beyond the virus and engage with the many other important issues around us. For those of us in California healthcare construction, Senate Bill 1953 compliance has been one of these issues dating back to its signing into law in September of 1994. Almost every project we’ve since completed has either been a direct result of or has been impacted by seismic compliance. Deadlines have moved and modifications have been made but SB 1953 remains.

Twenty-six years later, 95% of California hospitals have been built or modified to withstand a major earthquake with achievement of 100% compliance in less than five years. By 2030, all are required to not only withstand but remain fully operational after the largest of earthquakes. While we’re almost there, this final decade is estimated by the RAND Corporation to cost upwards of $140 billion. Due to the time required for planning, design, review, permit, and construction, hospitals need to be committing these funds immediately to meet this deadline. But they’re currently affected just like the rest of us with those trending words – unprecedented, COVID-19, quarantine, and the many new challenges that come with them.

In early 2019, CHA sponsored Senate Bill 758 that moved to target areas of hospitals where critical patient care is delivered instead of the more sweeping approach of campus-wide seismic upgrades currently in effect through the 1994 bill. This was largely welcomed as common-sense relief from the sizeable costs that hospitals had long been faced with to meet compliance especially given that healthcare cost and access have long been points of tension politically, legislatively, and behind the walls of residences statewide. With the possibility of financial relief to hospitals on the horizon, COVID-19 promises to have large and lasting financial impacts on healthcare across the globe and casts a shadow on the nearly achieved seismic compliance in California. This pandemic and its repercussions have shaken the foundations of culture, government, financial markets, and of course, healthcare. Speaking to seismic compliance CHA states, “California’s hospitals are safe. It’s time to turn our attention to how we will care for patients after disasters of all kinds, whether it’s an earthquake or another pandemic.”

In response to the pandemic, amendments are underway to CHA’s SB 758 to create a Health Care Delivery System Preparedness Advisory Committee; experts whose chief responsibility would be to guide the provision of care through any conceivable disaster. In addition, SB 758 seeks to offer relief from the burden of seismic costs by extending the current 2030 deadline to 2037, “…so hospitals are able to keep their doors open to care for all Californians in all ways, whatever disaster may come.” (CHA)

So, while COVID-19 remains a burden for each of us, particularly the healthcare industry, we must look beyond the current obstacle with optimism and ingenuity to deliver projects with expertise for the health of our communities.

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