Repair and Retrofit of Health Care Facilities

While since 1973 the design and construction of new California Health Care Facilities have been regulated by special ordinances, pre-existing hospitals have remained largely non-compliant due to the prohibitive costs of upgrading. The special seismic design considerations that are needed for new and existing facilities, a program for assessing the projected performance of these facilities in terms of life-safety and ability to remain operational under various seismic conditions, as well as for developing effective, phased retrofit strategies to improve performance is discussed in this paper.