The Oregon Resilience Plan – Critical and Essential Buildings – February 2013 86 <br /> <br /> <br />HEALTHCARE FACILITIES <br />Introduction <br />There are 60, mostly privately-owned, healthcare facilities within the state of Oregon, with the majority <br />of the buildings being over 40 years old. Each healthcare facility is comprised of either a single building <br />or multiple buildings that form a campus. Roughly 180 structures within all of the 60 healthcare facilities <br />serve critical healthcare functions. There are additional buildings within each healthcare facility’s <br />campus that have not been included in this study because they do not serve acute care needs and are <br />not considered essential. <br />In essential healthcare buildings, the most prevalent construction material is concrete, with <br />approximately 70 percent of concrete structures relying on concrete shear walls to resist lateral loads <br />and the remaining structures relying on concrete moment frames. The second most prevalent <br />construction material is steel: approximately an equal distribution using steel braced frames and steel <br />moment frames to resist lateral loads. Reinforced masonry and wood are seen more often in the smaller <br />structures located in the coastal or eastern zones. <br />The most notable structural lateral-system vulnerabilities found within healthcare facilities are the non- <br />ductile concrete and non-ductile steel frame buildings. These building structures were typically <br />constructed before the increased seismic risk in Oregon was well understood in the early 1990’s, and <br />before substantial code changes were made to require more robust connections that are better able to <br />resist seismic forces. <br />Independent of the type of lateral system, two very notable structural irregularities that typically create <br />problems were found in many of the healthcare buildings. The first is a horizontal irregularity in the <br />footprint of the building. Seismically, the most reliable shape for a floor plan of a building is a square or <br />a rectangle. The least reliable shapes are T, E, L, and X configurations or variations of these. In <br />association with these irregular shapes, many problems occur at parts of the structure called reentrant <br />or interior corners, which do not occur in a rectangular floor plan. The second notable structural <br />irregularity is a vertical irregularity, which occurs when the building steps back in plane as the floor <br />levels increase. <br />Historically, performance of healthcare facilities around the world has been extensively affected by <br />nonstructural damage. The ability of a healthcare facility to function is greatly dependent on the <br />nonstructural items within that facility. The building’s structure may perform very well during the <br />expected earthquake, but the hospital might not be functional after such an event due to nonstructural <br />damage alone. Nonstructural vulnerabilities typically includes lack of proper anchorage of mechanical, <br />electrical, and medical equipment and lack of proper bracing of ceilings, pipes, ductwork, electrical <br />elements, medical gas such as oxygen, and other critical service lines. Healthcare facilities are often <br />campuses made up of multiple buildings, which include those that provide healthcare and often a <br />central utility plant (CUP) or a central building that contains a large number of pieces of essential <br />equipment (such as boilers and air handling units) that support the rest of the campus. Although this