I would like to express my sincere appreciation to everyone who attended ACIA’s “OSHPD and the IOR” training seminar. Over 250 attended the event held at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, CA making this the largest one day event ACIA has presented to date.

Responding to this year’s legislative challenge (AB 2966) to the hospital inspection industry, ACIA and OSHPD worked diligently in a relatively short amount of time to present this training in a collaborative effort to reassure any and all concerned parties that OSHPD certified inspectors of record (IOR) are among the most highly trained inspectors in the industry. As indicated by one of the presenters, “It’s about time.”

One of the highlights of the event was the panel discussion segment made up of industry representatives from OSHPD Paul Coleman & Gordon Oakley), OSHPD Hospital Construction Safety Board (Member, Brian Spindler), Kaiser Hospital (Jim Wheat), American Institute of Architects California Council (President-Elect John Grounds), Inspectors of Record (Maury MacKenzie & Dave Foley) and California Hospital Association (Vice President Roger Richter).

The panel was moderated by a representative of the Construction Specification Institute (Bruce Biggar) who did an incredible job that maintained everyone’s interest so well that one hour went so quickly, it didn’t seem long enough. During this hour of the seminar, members of the audience were afforded the opportunity to ask questions of the panel who responded. Many told me later how they really enjoyed the panel discussion and hoped to see it in future training sessions (count on it).

Updates and reinforcement of policy procedures were addressed throughout the day on subjects including but not limited to IOR identifying code violations within approved documents, IORs making difficult decisions, perception of over-inspection, project closeout, IOR responsibilities regarding medical gas systems, fire code updates and much more. These various training subjects were conducted by OSHPD leaders including John Gillengerten, Gordon Oakley, Paul Coleman, Brian Coppock, Mike Novotny, Lorin Neyer, Thom McNatt and Gary Dunger.

The overall consensus was that ACIA and OSHPD have answered the call and that despite this year’s legislative challenge, IORs can be proud of the incredible service they provide for safer hospital buildings in California. We’re taking a good thing and making it better.

I would also like to acknowledge the incredible efforts of ACIA Executive Director, Dale LaCasella, ACIA Hospital Committee Chair, Kevin Brown, ACIA Information Systems Chair, Gerald Schafer for their contributions that made this seminar successful and for whom this would not have been possible without.

I’ve already received numerous emails inquiring if and when ACIA and OSHPD will present more training. We’re already working on it, look for an announcement soon at www.acia-rci.org.

Like the man said, “It’s about time!”

David Karina, RCI
ACIA President

Updates were made to the "Medical Gas and You" presentation handouts after publication of seminar binders occured. To download an update to your binder, please click here!