Grand Junction VA Medical Center
The Grand Junction VA Medical Center is a large campus of 17 buildings, serving 37,000 veterans/year. The VA wanted Commercial Specialists, a local NOTIFIER Engineered Systems Distributor, to replace its antiquated protection with a new system that functions as both a fire alarm and emergency communications system.

Performing an upgrade required the existing system to remain active while the NOTIFIER system was installed. The flexible architecture of NOTIFIER’s high-speed local area network (LAN), running on fiber-optic cable, allowed fire alarm control panels to be easily added one-by-one.

The specs called for the capability to disseminate emergency notifications throughout the entire campus, inside and outside. And they wanted the messages to be customizable as well – if there’s a fire alarm in building 9, an individualized, pre-recorded message in that building would instruct an evacuation, while patients and staff in the other 16 buildings would not be bothered. At the same time, the VA wanted the ability to all-page the entire campus as needed.
“We put intelligent panels with digital voice control (DVC) in every building; that flexibility really allowed us to tailor the voice messages they wanted and gave the ability for mass notification,” said Jason Porter of Commercial Specialists. “The DVC is a real flexible, unique voice evac system. You can pretty much do anything to meet the needs of the customer.”

Each building has an NFS2-3030 fire alarm control panel with integrated DVC. All panels are tied to an ONYXWorks workstation, staffed 24/7. The entire network of panels and devices, along with 3-D layouts of every building, are graphically detailed on the workstation, giving the VA system status information in real-time and pinpoint accuracy on the location and details of all events.

“They wanted to be able to get campus-wide information at one location, not to have to go to each building and see what’s going on with that system,” said Porter.
As is the case with many healthcare facilities, additions are always being made to keep up with new healthcare offerings and growing populations. The Grand Junction VA is no different.

“They just built a new surgery center at the hospital and we’re already expanding its system,” said Porter.