President’s Message

EVEN THOUGH we still have a little ways to go, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Now that we are all grizzled, battle-scarred COVID veterans, it should make this last push into spring and summer easier and bring some relief.

While many chapters have cancelled their face-to-face conferences for the year due to COVID-19, we are still a highly engaged association. Given how quickly healthcare technologies and processes evolve, our webinar series has continued to be a great vehicle to conveniently better ourselves during our busy workdays. Robert Barss’s team has assembled another stellar set of webinars for 2021 that are worth everyone’s consideration. Along that line, CHES has made significant inroads in adding new and adapting existing educational/training sessions to a virtual format to make sure you have access to the tools needed to operate and maintain your healthcare facilities. Another example is our newly upgraded medical gas CSA courses. These two courses were only recently completed by CSA. One of them has already been converted to a virtual format. The second is soon to follow.

On the national conference front, we’ve been extremely active since late December, converting the best parts of our typical face-to-face event into a high-end virtual one. Craig Doerksen is at the helm of a highly committed planning team, which is doing a great job. Between working with our corporate partners and attending other virtual conferences like the International Federation of Healthcare Engineering (IFHE) Congress in Rome, they’re basically taking a blank template from a newly sourced virtual conference platform and assembling a virtual conference for fall.

I continue to be awed by the efforts of our members who are working together and helping each other across the country. I don’t know why this still impresses me — it’s just what we do as a CHES family. Stay safe and take care of yourselves so you can take care of others. I look forward to seeing you all sooner than later.

Roger Holliss CHES National president

Members of the Canadian Healthcare Engineering Society can earn free continuing education units (CEU) by reading the Spring 2021 issue of Canadian Healthcare Facilities and passing a quiz based on articles in the issue. Once you’ve read the issue from cover to cover, simply go online to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TQGN7RG to take the quiz. CHES members who pass the quiz will be able to claim one contact hour (0.1 CEU) on their CanHCC or CCHFM certificate renewals.

HVAC

CERTIFIED OPEN STANDARDS

SECURE DATA

Ensure a strong level of interoperability by using open protocols which have third-party listing laboratories to verify adherence to your protocol’s form and function.

Employ a single sign on (SSO) architecture with compliance to scalable credentialing architectures and secure tunneling methodologies such as BACnet virtual private networks (B/VPN). Lighting

Security

Select lifecycle-centric manufacturers who minimize the negative impacts of waste with long-term warranty and repair services while adhering to WEEE, RoHS and LEED directives. MINIMAL WASTE

INTEGRATED FAULT DETECTION & DIAGNOSTICS

Specify integrated FDD (IFDD) that delivers real-time fault detection, step-by-step root-cause diagnostics while using all your existing cabling structures, including twisted-pair networks.

Enjoy the long-term benefits of suppliers who engineer a path forward to new technologies while remaining backwards compatible without third-party gateways or hardware replacement. BACKWARD COMPATIBLE

OWNERSHIP OF ANALYTICS

Insist on timely analytics for all stakeholders with complete control of formatting and scheduling while retaining full ownership of your data and the reports generated. Stay on top of regular advances in technology with supplier-certified, multi-lingual online educational videos, technical documentation, software updates, and advanced face-to-face classroom courses. OPERATOR TRAINING

SINGLE-APP EXPERIENCE

Create better-connected spaces with real-time access to occupancy, lighting, ventilation, and thermal comfort levels, using a holistic single app on the occupant’s mobile device.

Choose from a global network of factory-certified service partners who are passionate about long term, consistent, local support for you and your buildings. FACTORYCERTIFIED SERVICE

Sustainability requires a high level of integration between HVAC, lighting, and security systems. The art of building sustainability skillfully combines this integration with other technological and supporting elements that must endure over the long term. When these additional elements are maintained over the life of your building, true building sustainability emerges. To learn more about the ART of Building Sustainability please visit reliablecontrols.com/TABS3H20