Kaiser Permanente selected Siemens Building Technologies Inc., Buffalo Grove, Ill., to help protect its new Los Angeles Medical Center (LAMC) with advanced fire detection, voice evacuation and smoke purge systems.

Slated to open in 2007, the new LAMC will have 464 patient rooms, 11 labor and delivery rooms and six cardiac surgery suites. The 912,000-sq. ft. facility will serve as Kaiser Permanente’s Southern Californian tertiary center for cardiovascular surgery, pediatric intensive care, neurosurgery, spine surgery and high-risk obstetrics.

To help protect the LAMC, Siemens will install its XLSV FireFinder system, a fire safety system with integrated digital emergency voice evac. The advanced technology enables the system to respond to a fire instantaneously, automatically activating alarms and engaging all emergency control operations within 3 sec. of a detected fire.