NYMPC tracks fire at NY hospital

FREEPORT, N.Y.--With its 7,000 fire-protection devices, it's a full-time job keeping the fire system running at an optimum level and inspected in a timely manner at the newly renovated Elmhurst Hospital in Elmhurst, N.Y. Eric Wahrsager announced Dec. 29 that New York Merchants Protective Company won a five-year "$1 million-plus" contract to provide a full-time in-house fire systems technician for Elmhurst. "The hospital is a 13-story facility with literally thousands of devices that constantly need to be maintained and inspected," said Wahrsager, who is vice president of marketing and development at NYMPC. "It's like painting a bridge: By the time you get to the end, the other side starts to get rusty." Elmhurst Hospital is run by the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation. As such, it must follow state guidelines, which Wahrasger said mandate meticulous records be kept about the service and inspection of fire systems. The NYPMC technician uses an inspection tracking system. All of the fire devices in the hospital have bar codes. "A PDA that is linked into our mainframe feeds [the technician] real-time information [about the specific devices and the overall fire system]," Wahrsager said. It also lets NYPMC track and record the technician's activities during the day. This is the second New York City Health and Hospital Corporation project landed by NYMPC in 2007, and one of several other similar projects. NYMPC is a 98-year-old family-owned company doing commercial and residential fire and security installation. It has its own UL-certified central station; the family also owns wholesale monitoring company Nationwide Digital Monitoring. "We are one of the largest contractors to New York City for burglar and fire alarms," Wahrsager said. "You name the city agency, we do it," he said.