Occupancy Category for Organ Recovery Building 2

[jack36]

I'm working on a building where surgery will be performed on deceased individuals to recover organs for donation. There will not be living patients in this building. The donated organs will be transported to other facilities for surgery on the living patient.

What are your thoughts on Occupancy Category for this structure (IBC 2006)? Yes, surgery facilities fall into Cat. IV, but I'm sure that was considering the patients were living. Everything else about this buildings leads me to Cat. II.

 

[Ingenuity]

So the majority of your loadings are dead loads ? Sorry, could not resist

 

[GeoPaveTraffic]

I would suggest Cat. IV since you cannot be certain that the facility will not be converted to another use, especially following an emergency. A surgery suite is a surgery suite.

Mike Lambert

 

[darthsoilsguy2]

seems like a lab to me.

 

[MotorCity]

One question you may want to ask the client is "What is the urgency or emergency need for the organs?".

For example if the organs are to be placed somewhere in a freezer for study by grad students, I would not use category 4.

However, if the organs need to be ready at all times for accident victims that need an immediate transplant, I would use category 4. (Think organs packed on ice in a cooler an transported via helicopter to a hospital 100 miles away for a car accident victim. Maybe I have seen one too many of these type of medical programs on TV.....just a thought for an absolute worst case scenario).

 

[KootK]

My wife has forced me to watch many a Grey's Anatomy / ER. As such, I worry that organs may need to be both harvested and installed in the same region where a disaster may have just occurred (comet, shortage of hair product, etc). I'd call that a Cat4 application as the harvesting facility is really just an extension of the medical facility where the living will be treated.

Even if the need for organs isn't super urgent, the value of those organs may cause your client to think along Cat4 lines. If hours/days of down time leads to some valuable hearts, lungs, and kidneys becoming unusable, there will be associated costs.

Similar to MotorCity, I think that this ought to be a client decision.

I like to debate structural engineering theory -- a lot. If I challenge you on something, know that I'm doing so because I respect your opinion enough to either change it or adopt it.

 

[allgoodnamestaken]

It sounds like a post-disaster structure to me, if the organs are bound to living patients rather than for scientific study.

 

[DETstru]

I'm in agreement with both MotorCity and KootK. Your facility is serving Category IV facilities. Organs are often transferred from the donor to the recipient immediately upon death. The patient in the OR can be prepped and waiting before the organ has been removed from the donor.

The structural aspect is one thing but the MEP concern is probably more important. Depending on many things, Category IV might get you into a higher SDC, which could require seismic bracing for non structural components.
You could probably get some insight from the architect or MEP engineers to see if they are treating it like an "essential facility" (generators, UPS, ATS, etc). Ultimately, the owner should be made aware of your decision.

 

[Archie264]

Frankly, you may want to check with the locals and make sure they’re ok with it. Sometimes they get fired up about such things, even when the structure is built to castle-like standards. Otherwise you might be digging your own grave. If they’ve had bad experiences in the past it’s not something they’re likely to forget or igor. And don’t forget to consider lighting protection issues lest you cause a lot of problems to come alive. If you’re not careful it could really turn into a monster.

 

[jack36]

I appreciate all the input on this. The architect is not treating this as an essential facility, so I was not going to either. We were thinking that it was not critical because the patients were not alive, but the fact that this building will serve Cat. IV facilities does appear to be a valid reason to classify it as Cat. IV. I need to speak with the owner to see if continued operation is critical. It might be that they can move operations to a local hospital if needed.

Cat. IV would move me from SDC C to D. The MEP engineer is actually the one that has questioned the architect and me on this.

 

[hokie66]

Organs are "harvested" in hospitals. May be in a separate area of the hospital, but still an operating theatre. Time is of the essence for all human tissue. The donor is only "dead" because artificial life support has been turned off, and that is done immediately before the surgery begins.

 

[racookpe1978]

Well, the "harvesting" may be on "ex-live-loads" (bodies) but! - the sterilizing and "pre-cleaning" and maintenance of the surgery areas as sterile areas have to be kept up 24x7x365. You cannot sterilize "up" a durty surgery area to remove organs from a body, then move that organ into a dirty area then into a sterile surgery room then into a live patient. At a minimum, extra power reserves (alternatives) are needed for the refrigerators and sterile transports for those organs and instruments already prepped.

So power, water, air conditioning (can't leave the windows open to the surgery room when the power goes out, disposals, sterilizers and heated water, plumbing really do need to be ready for service ATFER the nearby area has been clobbered by an earthquake, bomb, tornado, hurricane, train wreck + explosion, etc.

 

[DETstru]

If you're in SDC C you're already putting in seismic bracing for non structural components (MEP, ceilings, etc) so there isn't that cost premium for going up to IV.

I think the right approach is as you said: talk to the owner. If they don't know already, explain what each category is and what it means for the structure. If they leave it up to you, I'd choose Category IV.