Medical gas: What’s required vs. what’s desired
Anticipating your client’s needs.

It’s important to ask the right questions early when designing projects, such as the new hybrid operating room at St. Luke’s Hospital in Duluth, Minnesota. Photo credit: ERDMAN

Placement of wall outlets in patient rooms should be coordinated with the client to ensure staff and patient satisfaction, such as in this delivery room at the Family Health Pavilion at Lehigh Valley Hospital Muhlenberg Campus in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

In operating rooms, overhead medical gas services are not desired. Coordination of wall outlet placement is critical to preserve staff workflows and equipment movement, like in this operating room at Hendrick Surgery Center, Brownwood, Texas.

Review of site-specific medical gas boom drawings is critical to proper system design and boom installation.
Minimum requirements for medical gas services and outlets have, for a long time, been confusing to plumbing designers.
While requirements were occasionally written into state administrative codes, designers often relied on AIA Guideline recommendations when there was no clear direction. More recently, many states have adopted and enforced the FGI Guidelines. The FGI Guidelines set minimum requirements for medical gas services and outlet quantities in many different functional areas in several building types.