President’s Message

BUILDING ON SMALL SUCCESSES

NOW THAT WE HAVE LIVED through more than 16 months of this pandemic, it’s worth taking time to reflect on what has transpired, including the good work and gains these last few months.

After approximately three years of back and forth, CHES and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have agreed on the appropriate CRA organizational category for CHES to be registered under.

CHES and the CSA Group still have no formal contract in place regarding our membership’s access to CSA healthcare standards. However, both parties have agreed that until CSA plans to discontinue the current offering of unlimited access, there is no urgency to finalize this contract.

The CSA’s qualified medical gas operator training course has been available online for some time. I am pleased to report a number of people have signed up and completed the new course. None too soon as well. COVID-19’s impact on the provision of safe and reliable medical gases has been far-reaching. I encourage you to take advantage of this qualified operator course as part of your ability to manage this pandemic.

Financially, CHES remains on budget, albeit a modest one. We continue to manage the balance of investments versus holding cash to ensure we are properly covered operationally, but not at the determent of long-term stability. I have no doubt CHES will be fine.

The 2021 CHES National (Virtual) Conference will take place Sept. 28-29. Given we had no experience in pulling off a virtual event a year ago, nor was this a consideration at the time, the planning committee has done extremely well. I’d like to thank Craig Doerksen and his team for taking a ‘blank sheet of paper’ and assembling our first-ever virtual conference, which is shaping up to be a noteworthy event. I strongly encourage everyone to attend since you can do so from anywhere.

We’re just a little over a year out from the 2022 International Federation of Healthcare Engineering (IFHE) Congress, which will be held in tandem with our national conference. Jim McArthur and his international planning group are now ramping up their activity for what we expect to be CHES and IHFE’s first in-person conference in more than two years. It’s a difficult task to plan for an event when you’re not sure where the world will be with COVID in a year’s time, but I remain hopeful.

All in all, it’s been a ‘fruitful’ few months given the foreboding environment we faced not long ago. We’re not done yet; however, the light at the end of the tunnel is shining even brighter than it was in spring.

Roger Holliss CHES National president

EARN CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS FROM CHES

Members of the Canadian Healthcare Engineering Society can earn free continuing education units (CEU) by reading the Summer 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 www.surveymonkey.com/r/FKKYQCJ 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.

the ART of Building T of Building Sustainability

HVAC

the A RT of

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

B UILDING SUSTAINABILI T Y

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.

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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