Healthcare Facilities Network
The Healthcare Facilities Network podcast highlights the essential role of facilities
management in delivering high-quality patient care. Hosted by Peter Martin, this show brings you expert insights on the issues, trends, and solutions shaping the future of healthcare spaces. Learn from industry leaders and discover ways to drive positive change in your facility.
Healthcare Facilities Network
A Leadership Journey: From Locksmith Apprentice to Facilities Manager
A passion for problem-solving can take a career further than most people imagine — and Donna Runyon Gerengher is proof. In this episode of Healthcare Facilities Network, Donna shares how she went from a locksmith apprentice to becoming the Facilities Manager for Fire Protection Systems at MetroHealth in Cleveland.
She reflects on how her early love of learning code, her fascination with rules and regulations, and even her childhood desire to be a lawyer all shaped the way she approaches her work today. As the first and only woman in the shop when she started at MetroHealth, Donna forged her path with determination, curiosity, and a simple rule that has guided her entire career: don’t make the news.
Donna also breaks down one of the most urgent safety concerns facing healthcare facilities — lithium-ion batteries. She explains the risks they pose, why the issue is growing, and how MetroHealth is proactively managing these dangers across the system.
Whether you’re building your career in healthcare facilities, navigating fire protection challenges, or seeking practical insights from someone who’s risen through the ranks, Donna’s story offers lessons every facilities professional can learn from.
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one of the people that worked here came in to pick up stuff for me at the other place that I had worked at as a locksmith and said that they had a job opening for a locksmith at the hospital. So I applied 23 years ago and uh they hired me and I wasn't nervous about being the only woman in the shop until I realized I was the first woman and only woman in the shop. So then yeah then I then I got a little gun shy about that but I came in and once these guys understood that I knew what I was doing they embraced me. They were they were actually they were very great. I taught them things they taught me things and I stayed in the shop for about 16 years. If you're a young woman if you like puzzles uh you like putting things together you know you like looking at blueprints if you like those things you can probably find a trade that that will line up with there's a major crisis facing healthcare facilities management.
SPEAKER_00:We have aging employees aging buildings and aging infrastructure we've created the healthcare facilities network a content network designed specifically to help solve for these three pressing issues in healthcare facilities management. We bring on thought leaders and experts from across healthcare facilities management all the way from the C-suite to the technician level because at the end of the day we're all invested in solving the aging issue. Thanks for tuning in look at our videos you will find that is a theme across our content. This is the Healthcare Facilities Network I'm your host Peter Martin Donna's got a really interesting career path which I want to get into and we actually first met back in 20 probably 2017 or 2018 when my former business partner myself Jack Gosslin and me were out at Metro Health uh doing a project for the great VP there Karen Detloff and and we were speaking to all of the the folks in the um the department it was when you were in your old hospital now you're in your new hospital and Donna was one of the folks that we spoke to and at the time you were in the locksmith department um and really one of the things I want to get to in the last well since that time you have really kind of climbed up and and and continue to progress in your um career and yet you do have an interesting career path. So we met Donna then had a lot of energy you know you can it's funny when you go to a hospital I'm sure you see this right you get different vibes from them just from what you pick up like if you're sitting in the front lobby if you go to the cafeteria just meeting people talking to people and you came in fall of fire which was great and and then saw Donna again at the Ashy annual this year and you did a great presentation on lithium batteries and that's another thing that we want to get to because I mean you you're very passionate right and I think that comes through and people will probably see that come through here. Tell us a little bit about your career path if you don't mind.
SPEAKER_01:How does one like me end up in the actual shops and in the trades um and especially as a female and if we go back I won't tell exactly what my age is but I graduated high school in 1992. So in the 80s and in the 90s um people didn't know what to do with these ADHD kids. We were just bad kids that wouldn't sit still and didn't pay attention. So there wasn't really a lot of um effort even put into what we're gonna do for our futures you know there was just kind of I think an assumption that we're just not going to really do much. So it was advised I was advised I had taken auto mechanics when I was in high school and I was advised by my guidance counselor you should probably go into the OWE work program. It's an optional work environment it's for it's a way of basically helping kids that just can't seem to find a way kind of find a path. So I did and there was an opening for a locksmith apprentice in Lakewood Ohio and my teacher thought that I would be a strong candidate and he sent me in a couple of the other students and uh I passed the shop owner's um test. He had a little mechanical test there. So I was able to pass that and uh so he hired me. So it was an after school job for just a couple hours a day. And when I graduated in 92 he asked me do you want to come on full time and I found I really liked it. And again with the whole ADHD thing you got to find something and you got to be passionate. And if you are you'll stick with it. So I did what what did you like about that Donna? It's it was always like solving a puzzle. So that was that was the first part of it was always solving a puzzle. There's a lot of artwork that goes into like the older locks and being in Lakewood um we have the fancier type of old fashioned mortise locks they have the very decorative trim and um the you had the crystal handles you have the um just the intricate brass and stuff that was done obviously now everything's not as decorative um but it was then but even just the lock itself is it's it's a puzzle. So it it kept me fascinated and I did it for 10 years in the private, you know, in the private sector and then um I saw that um one of my one of the people that worked here came in to pick up stuff for me at the other place that I had worked at as a locksmith and said that they had a job opening for a locksmith at the hospital. And I'm thinking I'm like a locksmith at a hospital I'm like oh how great would that be? I'll never be in the snow again uh in theory. So um so I applied 23 years ago and uh they hired me and I wasn't nervous about being the only woman in the shop until I realized I was the first woman and only woman in the shop.
SPEAKER_00:So then yeah then I then I got a little uh a little um I guess you'd say a little gun shy about that but I came in and once these guys understood that I knew what I was doing that I wasn't just here to you know to to be a number or whatever um they embraced me they were they were actually they were very great I taught them things they taught me things and I stayed in the shop for about 16 years wow that's a long time so um give a little bit if you don't mind like the hospital that you came into tell people how big I mean it wasn't the state of the art hospital that you're in now it was a massive sprawling complex can you give a little bit of context for what you walked into.
SPEAKER_01:So Metro Health is the safety net hospital for Cleveland um but we compete very we are still in competition or um I guess you'd say friendly competition with like the Cleveland clinic and university health systems. So we do try to keep up with them but again we're the safety net hospital and a lot of people assume that we we get these county dollars thrown at us it's not much it's 30 million dollars a year. So that doesn't cover anything um but again we are the safety net hospital and you you you have to have a passion for wanting to help people and believe in the mission and why you're here and I did I always thought that and I still do to this day I feel that what Metro Health does is important and it's needed. And we serve a um an underserved population and I feel proud when I go to work. You know I I feel that I'm I'm not just helping um myself I'm helping my community I'm helping the people I work with you just it it you have a very good sense of um um I guess community once you work for uh a safety net hospital yeah how uh two questions just based on the lacksmith portion of it the person who offered you the job from from Metro who was coming into your last place of employment was that because you had worked with this person over the years and they saw something in you or why did they offer that to you? Um so I did know a few of the people the maintenance technicians that from here from picking up parts and stuff and so the gentleman that I did know they vouched for me. That yeah she really knows her stuff she's the person the counterperson at um Cleveland Key that's where I came from um she's the counterperson there she helps everybody so they vouched for me and then when I went through my interview they had a bunch of questions and obviously with the 10 years experience I had I was able to answer those easily and effectively.
SPEAKER_00:And so that was what 5.3 million square feet for your old hospital?
SPEAKER_01:I believe that's right. Yes very good I don't remember everything but that number is seared into my head um for some reason we still have those buildings I I don't know if you're aware but yeah those buildings unfortunately are still standing uh there is a plan I I'm not a hundred percent sure what the plan is but there is a plan to tear them down here in the future they are looking to do that.
SPEAKER_00:Yes yeah you know in fact uh well at the annual when I ran into you and and had a nice discussion with Karen and she was kind of updating me on everything and told me that those old buildings are still standing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah and they still they still have to be maintained I can't I can't cut any of my fire protection.
SPEAKER_00:That's the first that's a one of the big questions is well do we have to still pay for this and update it if the building's still there we have to update it right right you just can't forget about it right it's it's right and and it's I mean it's right there. It's you know right where your old campus is tell me how did you so locksmith for 16 years at the hospital that's a long run. But then you kind of you you left the locksmith department and you evolved into fire life safety compliance management was that a difficult like did you have did you want to move you were there for a long time tell me a little bit about that evolution.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely so I was perfectly content my day magically ended every day at 3 30 it was great um I was perfectly content where I was but um I'm sure you're familiar with Michael Dragatinovic better known as Mike D. So Mike D, um he's wonderful person. He is probably my mentor and he's the res he is directly responsible for this mess of having me in this he um so they everybody knew that I had pestered the previous um compliance manager for a copy of the NFPA 80 2010 edition because I was responsible for the doors and the locks so I didn't want to make mistakes so I sat there and read it cover to cover and would double check it when I would go to make a new installation or uh do any types of repairs. And because I basically had the book memorized at some point that and I I had to keep detailed records for the key records for the hospital. And you have to be organized. So Mike D saw something in that and thought man she'd be great for this new position that we created for um the fire life safety compliance so supervisor. So that's I did that in 2019 I made that switch. Coming from the shop into management it was a little bit of a tricky transition because now I'm I'm going from working with the shop guys to now being in management. But I never let it go to my head I've always spoke to them with respect and treated them the way I did when I worked with them. Because at the end of the day we still work together it's not about me managing them or um them managing me or any of that. It's about us working together to make sure we manage the systems that we have here.
SPEAKER_00:Are you pleased you made that transition?
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely absolutely this um so again about keeping somebody interested in what they're doing I absolutely love the code and it changes enough and evolves enough that I have to keep reading about it and keep um keep on my game so to say if you ask me to read a novel I will never read the book I I don't like to sit down and read a book but I love to read code. I I it's one line at a time and then it changes and moves on right on to the next thing. So it it's just that it it has that fast pace that I like to stay with.
SPEAKER_00:But can you sit there and just read a code book like a person would read sit there and read a book?
SPEAKER_01:Well with purpose so I can't just pick it up and read it I have to under so you have to ask me a question.
SPEAKER_00:You have to be looking for something so one of the questions recently that um had me in a code book for a long time was um if you have a single address and you have a fire alarm system but you have multiple buildings do the fire alarm systems have to communicate so you know and it's still a gray area I'm still reading the code but I will sit there then and just keep reading through the NFPA 72 the Ohio fire code the building code um then I'll start going online and starting to look through the different uh blogs and stuff that people have out there so yeah I can literally with a purpose continue to just read through the book the code book I don't know it's weird have you now obviously you know NFPA code is a little bit different but I have so I mean it's very specific but I'm just trying to think back like in your life did you always kind of you said you like problem solving and obviously this is a form of problem solving but have you liked codes before or or is it did you just kind of find discover this when you moved into the hospital world?
SPEAKER_01:That is a fantastic question. So ironically enough I I enjoyed law and that's what code basically is and when I was younger I really I I I loved the idea of becoming a lawyer um not a criminal lawyer like a a business lawyer you know um but again when I was in high school the the paths I was on weren't exactly lining up with that and then when I found out how much the schooling was or how long I'd be in school I'm like oh I don't think I can do that. And then when I came here they had a union shop. So I I read the union books and understood that and uh we did a couple different things here um that improved some of the things with the union for the the staff um and from there um that's when I picked up that like I said the NFPA 80 and read that and it's all pretty similar if you ask me if you understand if you have a basic understanding of how law is written that's what code is and it's not for everybody. Not everybody gets that. And that's one of the things I think I offer the people here at Metro um I take what it says in the book and I make it to where you understand it. And I I try to do that very effectively and efficiently to where you're not and I try to do it where people don't feel stupid that well what this is trying to say is that you can't block the exit because if we do we we increase the chances of you know causing harm to people in an emergency that if there was an emergency they wouldn't be able to get out if that exits are obstructed. And then they understand that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah I was gonna actually ask you that um like sometimes we've all worked with people who they know codes they know standards but they have a difficult time translating that to the folks that you're dealing with on a daily basis clinicians people whose job it is to not know that so how do they uh respond uh to you when you talk to them about codes and standards and why you can't do something I imagine your approach is is is better because you're approachable and you break it down for them but how does that go over?
SPEAKER_01:So one of the things that I learned in the last few years here is um to start the conversation with my objective is not to tell you no my objective is to find a way to help you be able to do what you want to do safely and if there's a safe path to do it then we'll do what you're looking to do. So that's that's one of the ways that I started um so it's that time of the season to uh where people come out with the the Christmas decorations and so we started that conversation yesterday and the person previously last year that had gone through um I had to hear about that and I'm like well I take a different approach you can't have this because but I but you can have this so if you take something away I've noticed if you give them something back people are much more receptive to that. It is it's all about presentation and how you present it to people. It once if you start with the negative and you end with a negative then you've left them with a negative impression. If you start with the negative and you tell them but let's look at what you can do you know um people are much more receptive to that.
SPEAKER_00:You know what's interesting about um you know your answer going back to when you said you want to be a lawyer you know think about this it's funny like in careers and this is why I love doing this stuff just talking to people like sometimes you don't know when you're going through your career how it's going to help you down the road. But yet when you look back you're like oh man you know that love of law I'm not a lawyer but that's that's so foundational to what you do now and you're your own lawyer.
SPEAKER_01:Yes I it's it it does it parallels and I would have never guessed in a million years dip this is where I would have ended up but ultimately I've ended up where I started out wanting to be if that makes sense where I had ambitions to be yep yep you're not a lawyer but that's where you want to be and you're kind of there in uh like you say I think one of the things about Cleveland and I didn't necessarily know this until Jack and I started working out in that area it's a very competitive healthcare area.
SPEAKER_00:You have big healthcare players there. You guys are obviously one it's very competitive it's very high stakes and there's a lot of great healthcare just in that you know right off Lake Erie. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that's it if you have a diagnosis that you don't like there's you can literally walk out the door take a right and go down the street to the next organization and get a second opinion. And we do work collectively together. So not just as the healthcare providers which they do they do a fantastic job working um I on my way in I saw a Cleveland clinic ambulance leaving um but we collectively speak to in the facilities departments. So I I've got great friends over at the Cleveland clinic as well as university hospitals um and I wouldn't trade those relationships for anything uh we um collaborate together and try to solve each other's problems too yeah I think it's one of the unique things about the field you guys all kind of feel the same pain despite having differences in your organizational structure you all deal with the same things let the people above kind of fight do and do what they do right they can compete but we're here to make things better yeah exactly exactly you know it's interesting you were talking about codes and standards and I don't want to belabor it but I was reading your um you know your LinkedIn profile and you I love you you have that you have a line in there I have a weird love of codes and standards.
SPEAKER_00:Yes and then talking about enjoying the back and forth let me ask you a question like with the back and forth because I've heard this before from folks who love code and and interactions with surveyors and kind of those governing bodies you know the code really well you probably know it better than the people surveying your facility at some times that's me saying that not you um so how do you though interact with them during that survey process because you do enjoy the back and forth you can tell you enjoy the back and forth you want to be a lawyer so you must be going back and forth your entire life how do you handle that so I'll give you two stories two quick ones so the first one was I was
SPEAKER_01:Still relatively new, and we had our joint commission in the old building. And up on our um top floor uh mechanical space, it wasn't sprinklered, but it was a two-hour concrete mechanical space. Inside that was a um telecommunications um room for one of the cell carriers so that people in the neighborhood could get cell signals. Um and so they had that room locked and it was their equipment in our mechanical space. They had a clean agent system in there to protect their system. Um, they paid for the maintenance of it, they had people come out and inspect it. So the joint commission guy wanted in there. So, okay, I knew that somebody wrote the code on the back of the wall, so I went ahead and let them in there. Um, the fire extinguishing had been checked, the um the clean agent system had been inspected recently, so everything was good there. So then he wanted to know where it was fed from, you know, what circuits it was was on, was not on a life safety circuit. Um, so he wrote us for that. And I just I I stood there dumbfounded, and then I thought, okay, I'm not gonna say anything. And by the time we got back down to our conference room, I'm like, so I have to ask. I'm like, it's not a life safety system in this instance. It's here just to protect the equipment, not the people. The room is the the life safety feature. Um, the extinguishers are the life safety features. So he's like, it was a he said, okay, he goes, it's a good question. I'll take it back to SIG. Didn't matter at the end of the day, I lost. Uh, we ended up putting on a life safety circuit. Um, our most recent joint commission, uh, it was a full-time surveyor, joint commission surveyor, and um my documents I learned from Karen Detloff. So my my documents are in order and they're the way they need to be. They show every, if there's a deficiency, it shows it. It shows the way that it was repaired, everything. So my contractor that did my annual flow test for my fire pumps um used the NFPA 2023 edition of the NFPA 25. And that's what he cited me for. And I'm like, but it's all the same methods, and he goes, doesn't matter. The joint commission standard says that you'll use the 2011 of the NFPA 25. I'm like, but it's the same thing. It was tested actually a little bit above what it was back in 2000. Doesn't matter, it's not, and so I sat there and pouted for about two hours as he continued to go through the other books. So you ask how I handle it most days gracious graciously, other days I pout. Three days later, we sat there and we talked about it, and he's like, Boy, I I could tell that stung you. I'm like, it did. He goes, but that was the worst finding I had in your books. He goes, and you should be proud. I'm like, but I don't want any finding.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, right, right. It doesn't matter to you, right?
SPEAKER_01:It's a finding, it's a finding, and at that, it's a fail. So, but he's like, But my job is if I don't find something, then I fail. So he goes, This is a win for you. And and Mike D was even trying to console me, he goes, It's okay, it's a win. I'm like, it's not. So yeah, I can pout a little bit when I lose.
SPEAKER_00:That kind of, you know, that in in some ways it leads into the next question. I think you if you go back to your earlier years, whether it be a lock, you know, when you were just locksmith, not in the hospital, or a locksmith in the hospital, but is there a lesson that you learned? And and I think you actually just described one, but is there a lesson you learned that shapes how you are a professional today? Is there something from your past that's helped shape who you are today in this role?
SPEAKER_01:There's two. Um, I'm gonna give you the first, the first rule that I live by. Um, and anybody that knows me or has talked to me um and works with me knows this. My contractors, my co-workers, everybody. The rule that I live and die by here every day is don't make the news. And people think that I'm joking when I say that, don't make the news. Um, and what that means is if you make thoughtful, careful decisions, if you're following the letter of the code, you're trying to remain compliant, you're doing the inspections you're supposed to do, you're not cutting corners, you're repairing the things that need to be repaired, you're conducting the fire drills that need to be done, then you shouldn't make the news. And if you do, you won't make the news in the negative light. Um, there's been a lot of uh recent fires in um long-term or yeah, long-term health care, skilled nursing, and that's the first thing I do is I read these things, and it's failures of people not having their systems inspected, not doing their fire drills. Those things will put you on the news. I actually sent out an email with the one guy from Maryland that just had this dumbstruck look on his face. And my email started with, don't be this guy. And then I put the article there of how they could have avoided all this if they would have just done what they should have been doing to remain compliant. Um, the other role that I live and die by, especially at work and my approach to anything else, you treat the hospital or any organization that you work for, like your mother or father are there. And if you do that, then you'll deliver top care every day.
SPEAKER_00:If you like this video, please like and subscribe to the network. And more importantly, share it with your colleagues in the healthcare industry. Together, we can solve the aging crisis that's impacting all of us. Folks who are maybe outside of facilities realm, they don't understand the impact that you and your team has on the patient and on the safety. And and you know, I I I you were talking about don't make the news. So I'm out, you know, our office is here in Boston, although we have office in Dallas and Fought Lauderdale and Salt Lake City, but here in Boston, over the last three or four months, we've had two fires at long-term care facilities. One from late, maybe you saw it late summer. I think it was summer July 15th. July very good. So yeah, that was, I mean, terrible to get you what what did you find as you looked at that? And I think it was 11 folks who died, right?
SPEAKER_01:In the building, it was 10 initially, but yeah, you're right. I think one of the people that had been um been in critical condition finally did succumb to uh their injuries. It was a tragedy, it really was. And that was the email that I sent of the one fire inspector. Um, had this ridiculous look on his face. And so that's what I sent out to my folks. Don't be this guy. They failed to do their inspections. The owner of the facility failed to do their five-year internals. Um, I'm not sure if they were doing their, it didn't say that they were doing their quarterly sprinkler inspections. They alluded to that they were doing their annuals, but I think that there's still more to come out about that. But the two things that really it just upset me on a personal level was they were not conducting their fire drills. They had no records for two years of fire drills, and you could see that by the way that the residents didn't know what to do. Um, and then the worst part of that was when the cameras captured the staff abandoning the buildings without helping the residents. That's what was just it was, it was just uh, it was horrifying. You know, our staff, that's we had an incident. Um, I won't go into great detail, but we did have an incident um that highlighted that we check boxes. When we when we do the code, it says you must do X, Y, and Z. And so we check those boxes. And sometimes it doesn't say some of the things that you should do or what are or would be a good practice. So in your fire drills, it tells you you need to close the doors, um, you need to pull the pole station, all those things, uh, shut off the med gas, the oxygen. It it tells you all those things in your your fire drills. What it does, it tells you to use your extinguisher. Um, and if you can't use the extinguisher to evacuate, what it doesn't tell you to do in your fire drills is how to put a person that's on fire out. Um, so and people don't really think about that, that it goes all the way back to when you were a little kid, uh, your safety town days, your snap, drop, and roll. And if your friend's on fire, get a coat or a blanket. And um, so we had an incident, but our staff, it was just amazing. They responded exactly the way they were supposed to. I had six smoke detectors um succinctly go off, and then in the middle of that, somebody pulled a pole station, and then the seventh smoke detector went off. So, from their training, that closed the doors, pull the pole station, they did that. Um, but again, because we had never trained to how to put a person out, um, the nurse had burns on their arms trying to pat this person out. So, since then, we've updated our fire drill training to include if a person is on fire or their clothing, our blankets and our towels have fire retardants in them. You can use those to smother the fire to put the person out.
SPEAKER_00:What are other ways that you increase your knowledge and that you're always learning? Are there other things you do?
SPEAKER_01:Mike D's gonna love this answer.
SPEAKER_00:Sorry, Mike.
SPEAKER_01:He tells me to go get other hobbies. So I I watch a lot of documentaries. I I watch a lot of engineering documentaries, um, fatal engineering, engineering catastrophes, engineering disasters. Um again, don't make the news, don't make one of those documentaries, you'll be okay in life. Um, but I I enjoy that. That stuff that does. I do watch a lot of stuff on the solar system and the universe. Um, so yeah, I am. I'm always learning. Um, I I've I've tried reality TV. I've tried uh I'll watch some of the game shows every now and then because they're they're interesting and inquisitive, but I don't watch reality TV because I I I lead a real life. And uh yeah, so it's not as entertaining as theirs, but it's you know, I leave one, so I don't want to watch one on TV. Um, I I do go out, I enjoy the outdoors in the summertime. I absolutely enjoy the outdoors and stuff, but I'm still always learning. You know, it's my son wants to do kayaking. I thought, okay, well, let's delve into that and see what it takes to where we can go, what would be the best kayak or the safest kayaks for us, you know. I don't like water that's deep that I can't see my feet in, so let's find a place that that lines up with. Did you did you find yeah, there's there's a couple of them down in Canal Fulton. There's a couple of um little streams and stuff that we can go down and and do that with.
SPEAKER_00:So um just the last thing relative to, you know, obviously you're a woman, you're female, you came in 18 years ago, there weren't a lot of you, as you said, and you were the first and the only. But what advice were you know, as a you know woman in this profession who who's advanced, what advice would you give to maybe a younger woman, the younger, the younger you about the field and how to obviously you're succeeding, how how to go about forging a career in something that you're obviously passionate about.
SPEAKER_01:That right there, that's key. You have to be passionate about it. Um, you can't just do this like it, like you're at a factory, that you're taking part A and assembling it to part B to get part C. Um, you have to have a drive and a passion for what you're doing. There was a young lady that worked here with me. Um, we hired her, it was in 2010. She was a plumber. Uh, she went on to be the main plumber for the Cleveland Brown Stadium for like 12 years, too. So she definitely knew her thing. God bless the woman. She tried so hard. Her name was Jenny Williams. She tried so hard to make a plumber out of me. I'm like, I don't want to be a plumber. I I just I don't want to do this. So if you're not you're not passionate about it, it's not gonna help. Find what you like. I I think that there's really in the general majority of people, there's two types of facilities people. There's electrical and then there's mechanical. I am mechanical. So everybody that's held the role prior to me in our compliance roles um came from a fire alarm background. So our fire alarm throughout the organization was top notch. I don't understand uh the electrical part of it as much. So I focused on the fire pumps and the sprinkler systems, and I have brought I have advocated and um made a lot of changes to help make sure that we don't have contractors that uh abandon pipes in place, that they just pull the heads, cap them, and leave these long legs. Um I'm on my my um fire pumps more than just the once a year and the the monthly. We're making sure that they're working the right way. Um we're not just doing the churn test, and if it's smoking and spitting water, well, it's okay until the annual comes up and uh, you know, the contractor says, hey, you know, you need to rebuild it. Our people are on top of doing that, making sure that um everything's working the way it's supposed to. Um I our guys are in-house, even um if it's a small enough project, we try to have our guys change some of the heads, the ones that are licensed. Um so there's you do you have to have a passion for it. Um if you're a young woman, if you like puzzles, uh you like putting things together, you know, you like looking at blueprints. There's things, there's there's there's indicators in your life that you'll see uh you like geometry. If you like those things, you can probably find a trade that that will line up with. And and I stress this more now than ever. I just had the conversation again with my son last night. I said, I don't have infinite words of wisdom to point you into a direction into any one particular career path other than the trades. I and my my son's just like, well, I want to be this. I'm like, I I I understand that, and you might want to do that as a hobby, but with AI out there right now, people will pay insane amount of monies to make their toilet work, to make their light switch come on, and to have their home built, to have heating and air conditioning. I don't like to sweat, I will pay whatever it takes to make my house cool. People will do that, and AI is not going to replace that. So that's something I really want to stress to the young people is that uh facilities management, maybe not as the manager, but definitely as a tradesperson, that right now is AI proof. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:No, it's funny, and that's part of here on the healthcare facilities network. That's the reason we just started doing these things, I don't know, three years ago now, whenever is because we're not. I mean, I saw this in recruiting. You see this when you're recruiting people, there's just not people out there, and you know, if yeah, it's you're you're very very true. I just we just released a show last week. Um, kind of like you, you know, you started off in the trades, now you're in management. We were at St. Luke's Hospital or talking to people from St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri again. Right. Three guys from the trades, you know, one was a landscaper, just disparate trades, not even you know, one was an HVAC tech for or for uh a home residential. Oh, but you know, guys who just kind of got into the trades and then found healthcare like you, everybody finds it a little differently, right? Nobody's path is linear. Um and they, yeah, no, they love it. Let's Donna, so we could keep talking about this, but lithium batteries. Um, you do a presentation on it, it was a great presentation.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Which I enjoyed. Um, it's a facility-wide conversation these days, right? Give a little bit of background. Why did you decide that, hey, you know what, there's value in this presentation? And from your vantage point, and you talk about it really well in your presentation, how big of a risk do they pose lithium batteries pose in in hospitals and healthcare today?
SPEAKER_01:Um, I can't think of the guy's first name. I think his last name's Poe. I know it is. I think it's David Poe. David Poe from um, he does a lot of the W V I Z uh PBS um broadcasting. And he had a thing on again, watching my documentaries. Exactly. So it was 2017, is when it came out, um, speaking about the the newer technology with the lithium-ion batteries. So, because I was even thinking about that. I'm like, how are the iPods and the, you know, if you remember iPods, um and the iPhones and all this, how are they increasing these batteries? How is everything getting smaller, but the battery life is lasting longer? And um, you know, you remember in the late 90s, early 2000s when the cell phones came out and they were big and they were chunky, and yeah, you know, the battery died after like three hours. So um he did a great job of explaining this whole lithium-ion battery thing and the fire potentials. So then once I started looking into that, I started seeing that that these people are are the hoverboards. I think that was the year 2018 and 2007 or 2019. Well, that's another reason why they keep me, is because I do have a pretty good memory on stuff. Um, but that's when those hoverboards became a big deal. Um, all the kids were getting them for Christmas, and then you kept seeing people's Christmas trees go up in flames because the hoverboard was um being charged. And uh so those lithium-ion barriers. So that is what actually started it was looking at it from the residential with the scooters and the hoverboards, and then um 2017, um, Samsung had that debacle with their uh phones that they had to do the recall on all their um their galaxy phones that were causing uh starting fire on people's beds and stuff like that was um a defect in the lithium ion. So then I started thinking about it more and more. I'm like, well, if it's in their phones and it's in their laptops and it's in my laptop and it's in my phone, it's all through the hospital. I'm thinking, you know, and it was just one of those things. I just kept thinking about it. And um, so then I started looking, like, what does the joint commission say about this? What does DNV say about this? What does the Ohio fire code say about this? Nobody was saying anything about this. So everybody, the only thing that was coming out was that the technology is so new and evolving so fast that the codes and the standards can't keep up with it. Um, the best that they've done are the NFPA um 855 for the energy storage systems, which there is a chapter in there. I can't remember it off the top of my head, but there is a chapter in there that's starting to help with how to mitigate some of that. Um, that was if from the last time I did my presentation, there was a young woman in the audience that actually brought that to my attention. I've just recently started to read that to see how do I apply that here. Um, she had made it made me aware that it's not just in your phones, it's not just in your laptop, it's in your MRI machines now, it's in your CT machines. So the batteries that you had before, the lead acid batteries now are being traded out for the lithium-ion. Um, how are we going to manage those systems? If you go to your um clinical engineering department, you go to your IT departments, they have it in stacks on shelves. So when I see that, and I know that if one battery goes, it starts the whole chain of all the other ones. Um, and so that's I just kept reading more and more things. You kept seeing things in uh New York is kind of like taking the bull by the horn, so to say. Um, and unfortunately, I think they've probably had the highest amount of incidents um in the old apartment buildings. Um, they've certainly had probably the most casualties as a result of lithium ion battery fires, but not in healthcare. Again, these are in residential places. But what can be applied in residential can be applied certainly in healthcare. So that's how I started looking at this. Um, ironically enough, we are hoping to have the policy finished in January. And I will gladly share this with anybody. Once we have our policy written, I'll share it with anybody. Um, my very few basic takeaways on this don't handle anything that's lithium ion that's on fire, um, unless you can safely do so. But very rarely can you because they have a tendency to pop and explode like a grenade or like a firecracker. If you're in a healthcare setting, you have oxygen, you have different med gases. If there's you have a large enough piece of equipment that is starting to smolder, starting to off-gas, and starting to go into thermal runaway, close the door. Most healthcare facilities, especially the newer ones, are fully sprinklered. So let your sprinkler system do its job. Go to your nearest pull station, pull your pole station, your fire department will be delighted to show up for something that's not burnt popcorn. Um, and they will come, they will contain it, they'll put it out, and they will remove it and dispose of it for you.
SPEAKER_00:The policy you're writing or that Metro is writing, um, you just gave a great example of something, and again, it's not finished yet. Um, as you said, but what else, what other elements are you containing within that policy?
SPEAKER_01:So uh we still are trying to figure out a um EV policy for the the vehicles. Um, I was just getting ready to spend insane amounts of money for of uh metros to get the uh fire blankets for the parking garages. Um, and then in May of 2025, UL and NFPA came out with a press release condemning the use of those. Um saying that they're yes, saying that they're more of a hazard to the fire departments because they trap the flammable gases under them. And so firemen are naturally curious creatures, and so they lift that blanket to see if it's out, and there's not, there's still an ember, and it ignites those flammable gases and has caused a lot of harm um and injury to several firemen. Interesting. So I'm back to square one. Um, the Ohio fire code was supposed to come out in July, then in September, and now in December, and it's supposed to have some guidelines on that, um, on where you where you should or should not install them. Um, a lot of places have put them in their parking garages. Uh, metro is no different. I know the recommendations are not to put them in the core of your parking structure, that you should be putting them on the top floors. The reason for the top floors so that the fire departments can use their ladder trucks and they can access it and start putting the copious amounts of water on them.
SPEAKER_00:Interesting. So as you're researching this, uh it doesn't sound like there's a whole and you talked about NFPA 855, but it doesn't sound like there's a whole bunch of uh relevant information to use. It's it's truly evolving.
SPEAKER_01:It truly is evolving as fast as again, like I said, I was I had this written up, I had it where what garages I was going to use these blankets in, and um it was I was still doing my uh getting my Ashy presentation uh ready for July, and I was on the NFPA website and I saw the NFPA uh press release with you all on the fire blankets. So that's how fast it changes. Um there's a lot of manufacturers out there right now that are trying to do it. Almost reminds me of a K-class fire extinguisher because it's it's some it's a wet chemical that they're trying to have you put on whatever the battery is that's um experiencing the thermal runaway. And then it kind of makes a blanket over it itself and then encases it and almost like hardens around it. So it smothers the fire and then it keeps it from where you can't just pull it off and then get the off-gassing. I don't know how good those are yet. Um I don't know what the recommendations are. Uh anything new always needs to be tested. I don't want to be the person to be the field testing um facility for that. I would like to see what the NFPA, I do follow the NFPA, do believe in the work that they do. They put a lot of money, them and UL, Underwriters Laboratory, they are definitely uh putting the work in to do the research. Um, if they back it, I would be more than happy to look at it and consider using things like that.
SPEAKER_00:So this obviously you are not a um governing body, you're not the joint commission, you're not DMB. You're a representative. I'm just Donna. You're Donna representing Metro Health, but you if you had to give from your experiences and from your research, if you had to provide to like how somebody's watching this, hospitals, you know, some maybe they haven't given the thought you had, relative to kind of like an action item or something to you know, either investigate or look into or do what would it be realizing again that um this is you speaking, it's Donna speaking and and not anybody else.
SPEAKER_01:Right. The opinions that are expressed are my own and not of Metro Health NFPAs or Audi Rayo's laboratories. That's very good.
SPEAKER_00:Do you practice that?
SPEAKER_01:No, but I should probably because when I do my presentations, um uh so what I have found with this, and that's why I said our what I would like to have implemented into our policy is if you have if you have a um so your your key uh fobs for your cars, um, just your little fobs, those have a lithium-ion battery. I I would not recommend that you shut the door and call the fire department for that. Something as small as this, I I um most places still have the plastic um trash cans. If you have something small, a phone, um, you know, the key fobs, things like that, if you can put a plastic garbage can or a metal garbage can over it to help contain it and reduce that risk of um not just the off-gassing, but again, sometimes they explode and they pop. Um, that's definitely been the the issue with like a lot of the vape pens. You don't know who has a vape pen in their pocket. So those batteries do have a tendency when they start to go into thermal runaway, they pop and it sends that debris out and you know, can not only hurt you, it can burn you seriously. Um, so those are some of the things that I would recommend. If it's a bigger, if it's a laptop, um, and I've even told my son this if it's a laptop, you know, I've told my son, don't be afraid to tell your classroom to leave the classroom, close the door, and pull a pole station. Again, um, I'm sure everybody that is in any kind of facilities management can um relate to this, relate to this with me. The fire department gets so irritated over the burnt popcorn. They will be thrilled, really, to come and help you and help your facility if you have a big enough piece of equipment that's experiencing thermal runaway, or if you have enough devices. Uh, one of the other things that I want to look at and implore other people to look at, there are a lot of different um explosion-resistant cabinets out there that they're starting to gear more towards the um lithium ion. So that's something that I want to look at for our IS department or IT department and our clinical engineering department. If you have the batteries, um batteries, our uh clinical engineering department is so proud of them. They took the initiative to they keep them in a plastic like a um garbage can or like a five-gallon bucket, but they tape them. They wrap tape all away the way around them so they don't make the contact between the other batteries and cause it to start going in. Even though they have low charge left, um, you have enough of them clustered together, you don't want them to start in the thermal runaway. But at the end of the day, just don't touch something if it's already, if it's really off-gassing, if it's sparking, walk away from it because if it blows up, it will hurt you. There's numerous pictures on the internet of of people that have touched things if they were off-gassing and they have serious burns on their hands and their face and their arms.
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna ask you that about the thermal runaway. Um like, and maybe it's hard to quantum, how long does that process take? How long?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, how sometimes it can be very instant.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so I know that there's some manufacturers out there that are trying to make detection devices for it. So uh theoretically, from what I I've read, some devices start by producing the gas that you can't see it and you can't smell it, but they're trying they're trying to make the detection devices that will be able to pick it up in advance. Um, and that can sometimes happen a couple of minutes prior to. By the time you see it off gassing and you start to see that smoke coming out of it, you can be anywhere from seconds to a couple minutes before it actually, you know, combusts and and bursts into flames. So sometimes it happens very quickly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, doesn't mean it hasn't happened it's not happening.
SPEAKER_01:Correct.
SPEAKER_00:Perfect.
SPEAKER_01:We had um a piece of lab equipment. Don't ask me what it was. It was just it was a large piece of lab equipment in the lab. Uh nobody knew that it had lithium-ion batteries in it. Uh, they it set off the smoke detection. They, you know, obviously facilities we responded, um, unplugged it, and found and that was just it. No, we called the fire department. Ultimately, the fire department came out and discovered that that's what it was with it plugged in. It was going into thermal runaway. It did not explode. Um, it just did the off-gassing, but um we found that it was lithium-ion batteries in there. Unplugging it is what stopped the thermal runaway. Um, and then it didn't explode. But that's why I it is in so many things, you just don't even know what it's in. It's in so many things.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and as you were telling my story, that was what I was thinking. That's kind of the scary part, is you don't know that it is until you experience something like that.
SPEAKER_01:If you have an AED in your facility, it has a lithium-ion battery. Yeah, yeah. So, and most facilities now have numerous AEDs throughout the place. I know um, I don't know that our MRI, that was one of the things that um I had reached out and I have to go through my emails and see if I've got a response. But um, I that's what I was checking with with our radiology department to see do you know if you have in any of our newer um MRI machines or CT machines, do you know if they have the lithium ion batteries? It's just it's we had an incident um that really highlighted this about 18 months ago. Um, it was just a box of it was 10 or 12 thermometers in a box, uh, cooler thermometers. So they had the glycol in them so that they they don't freeze. And um they put them in the kitchen office overnight. And the cook came in that morning at five o'clock in the morning and um alerted the facilities management person that just happened to be walking through that hey, there's all this smoke in here. And so it had just put itself out, but the box did at some point. One of the batteries was defective, caught on fire, caught several of the other device batteries on fire. We think it was the glycol um when it melted out of the tube, is what actually put the fire out. Um, but it still was very nasty, toxic gas um that filled this room. So they had to open the door, open all the other doors to get the air circulating. Um, and then that was the big question what do we do with the the box that's down there that burnt the carpet, burnt the file cabinet that it was up against. Our guys had, and again, this wasn't the right process. This definitely was not something I would recommend. Again, I would call the fire department going forward. But this was our first incident with it. Our guy did use heavy gloves, picked it up, put it on a cart, and um put it in the one mechanical room. So then I saw it, I'm like, I want that in my mechanical room. So I picked it up and took it outside and left it outside the building. So, and again, knowing what it is 18 months ago, so I've learned a lot since then. Don't do that. But yeah, it's definitely um it can go from off-gassing to stopping to off-gassing to go into a full thermal runaway to where it actually catches fire and explodes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Wow. Well, and your you know, your initial lesson is is the one that does call the fire department.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Right. You know, um, and we're nobody wants to do that.
SPEAKER_01:They always think that they're gonna get in trouble. And no, our our buildings call the fire department all the time for the burnt popcorn. Please pull the pole station for an actual battery fire.
SPEAKER_00:What keeps you coming back every day to Metro? Not lithium. What keeps you engaged? What keeps you as passionate as you are?
SPEAKER_01:Knowing that I'm making a difference, um, or at least believing that I'm making a difference, knowing, believing kind of two different things, hoping I'm making a difference. Sure. Um, I I work with a great staff. Um, I work with a young lady named Nicole. Uh, she's great to work with, and we seem to be aligned on our common goals. And everything that I'm doing, I try to make sure I leave that blueprint. So in the event that something happened and I didn't show up to work, people wouldn't have to start over from square one, that there's a foundation laid and they're not starting from scratch and they're able to continue on. Um, I come because every day I come to work because I I want it to be a safer environment where people, the last thing they have to worry about is if there's going to be a fire or if there's going to be a mechanical failure that causes harm to the staff, the patients, or the visitors.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, great answer. And you know, you hit on one of the things, and we're gonna stop here, but you could roll it out. Some something that I think a lot of organizations don't do is that knowledge preservation and and that built-in succession planning that year, because you you're right. I mean, you never know what can happen like this morning, right? You're snowing. So knowledge preservation is critical. So I want to thank Donna for appearing on the Healthcare Facilities Network. Donna, thank you.
SPEAKER_01:It was my pleasure, Peter. Anytime.
SPEAKER_00:Perfect. Well, I appreciate you tuning in to the Healthcare Facilities Network. We will be back in the future with another episode. Donna, thanks. Have a great day.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. You too, Peter.
SPEAKER_00:If you want to be a guest on a future episode of the Healthcare Facilities Network, go to healthcarefacilitiesnetwork.com and let us know who you are and what you want to talk about. Because together, we can solve this critical aging issue.