Hospitals and other healthcare facilities have many requirements when it comes to wiring.
Some areas of the buildings are recognized as Areas of Patient Care under the National Electric Code (NEC) 517. NEC 517.2 defines Ares of Patient Care as “Any portion of a health care facility wherein patients are intended to be examined or treated.” Included in this are dental facilities, urgent care facilities, clinics, etc. When installing electrical wiring, greater care is taken to ensure that the equipment being powered does not short or overload, causing harm to a patient.
The NEC requires redundant grounding on wiring to an equipment in these areas. AFC Cable provides three versions of Health Care Facilities (HCF) Cables to meet different needs and code standards within these applications. All of these cables meet the requirement for a redundant ground and are available in steel armor or aluminum armor.
- MC Luminary HCF® – Type MC-PCS cable with both power and control circuits under one armor. These can be used in areas where the hospital is utilizing daylight harvesting or LED dimming systems. In addition, our luminary healthcare cable has the polypropylene covering extruded directly on the conductors.
- MC-Stat® – Type MC cable with the polypropylene covering extruding directly on the conductor, saving time and labor during installation.
- HCF-90® – Type AC cable is a traditional style AC cable that combines the full size green insulated copper grounding conductor with the armor/bond wire to provide redundant or isolated grounding capability.
Using luminary healthcare cables helps speed up installation where dimming systems are used to lower lighting in patient rooms, or automatically turn lights on and off with daylight harvesting controls. MC-Stat® saves labor time by eliminating the wrap and the time associated with remove it from the conductors.
In addition to areas where the redundant ground is required as with luminary healthcare, hospitals also utilize other products throughout the rest of the building. MC Luminary® Cables, Fire Alarm Cables, Homerun Cables and other traditional Type MC cables can be utilized in addition to Parking/Deck Lot Cable which can be used for parking garages and other outdoor applications on the property.
*U.S. Patent No. 8,088,997
