Hospital Centro Médico Campinas is one of the most renowned general practice hospitals located in Campinas in the state of São Paulo, 100km from São Paulo, Brazil. The hospital was founded in 1973 and has since been a key healthcare provider in this metropolitan region. Continual operation of the hospital’s daily activities and care for patients is vital. Fire safety measures included an on-site fire brigade and the installation of fire panels to be monitored and maintained across the hospital buildings. As constructions age and require updates, fire protection provisions also need to be reviewed accordingly to ensure efficient, fast responses to fire outbreaks.
The success of and need for the services the hospital provides meant that its premises were expanded across diverse buildings in the past five decades to accommodate demand. Building renovations included layout changes. Exclusive new fire control panels produced by different manufacturers were installed during each stage of building upgrades or in freshly built constructions. Eventually, there were 11 different fire alarm panels all operating separately. Each required individual monitoring, cleaning and maintenance and some of them needed spare parts or service support which was not even available in Brazil. All these system conflicts and other incompatibilities between the older and newer systems resulted in a partially disconnected, and thus risk-laden, fire alarm system.
Eduardo Riguetti, responsible for fire safety at the hospital complex, contacted Renato Lima, a Bosch project expert in Campinas, to find a feasible solution. The main objective was to review and redevelop the entire complex fire alarm setup at the hospital to provide safety and reassurance for all personnel on site, including staff and patients. The major challenge for the project team to overcome was the integration and consolidation of all data and configurations of the 11 separate fire control panels into one single panel. Fortunately, effective cooperation between all involved parties and cutting-edge Bosch technology could solve this dilemma.
The fire control network features one Modular Fire Panel 5000 Series, which consolidates the details of all other detection devices, with improved user operation and maintenance. This makes system updates and incident reaction times much faster than before, thus optimizing fire safety across the entire hospital enormously. The new modular system could be set up with specific expandability as needed for the unique layout of the premises.
Five loop modules were integrated to cover all areas of Hospital Centro Médico Campinas and thus ensure reliability with detection. The loops include sensitive environments such as ICU, operating theater, patient wards and the hospital laboratory. Smart connectivity of the new network allows maintenance to be conducted by technicians with minimal disturbance in these areas.
Three remote keypads connected via Ethernet to the fire control panel were configured for the hospital’s three desked areas which are all manned 24/7: the main entrance reception, the on-site fire department, and the operation and control center. This interconnectivity and remote technology decentralize control of the entire fire alarm network and make it fully addressable. The fire department can now quickly identify the exact location of a fire outbreak or another emergency incident.
“This system is integrated with gas detection, sprinklers, and access control, so in the case of an event occurring, all doors and gates would be unlocked, and now with only one fire control panel in place, evacuation times are much faster and safer,” Lima said. “Excellent specification and design work was carried out by the integrator and the Bosch engineering team.”
The project was hailed a great success. Thanks to close collaboration between the Bosch experts, the Brazcamp Tecnologia installers in Campinas, and end customers at the hospital, the project planning and product installation all ran smoothly.
“Excellent specification and design work was carried out by the integrator and the Bosch engineering team,” Riguetti said. He and his colleagues can now reassure the hospital personnel and patients that fire safety is well covered for an instant response every day around the clock, whenever needed. Thanks to the flexibility of the new, future-proof Bosch solution, there is even capacity for future integrations, such as access control and voice alarms.
