Investigating Safety Standards and Performance of Emergency Power Diesel Generators in Hospitals of Tabriz, Iran

Abstract

Background: Power outage risk is one of the serious risks that could be eliminated by supplying electricity through the emergency power system installed in a hospital, such as diesel generators and uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs).

Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate the observance of safety and maintenance standards of emergency power diesel generators in the hospitals of Tabriz.

Methods: This descriptive-analytical research was cross-sectionally performed in 18 hospitals of Tabriz in 2014. The data collection tools included a questionnaire and a checklist prepared according to the national standards and consisted of 87 questions in 15 categories. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 19.

Results: The average rates of observance of safety and maintenance standards of diesel generators in 111-question standards and 87-question standards were equal to 61.4 and 52.8%, respectively. Regarding the observance of the 19 standards, “ventilation” and “daily visits” standards with 28.94 and 96.24, respectively, had the lowest and highest degrees of observance in hospitals. There was a significant direct association between observing the standards defined for diesel generators with the number of hospital beds (P = 0.01) and the total capacity of emergency power generation by generators (P = 0.05).

Conclusions: The results of the present study indicate a low level of safety and maintenance for the emergency power systems of hospitals. These scores are not considered favorable for a system called “emergency”, and if the necessary interventions are not made in this regard, in the event of natural disasters and human errors, hospitals will face numerous problems.