SME Consulting / HCAI Resources

The reference desk.

A working library for owners and teams navigating California healthcare-construction compliance. Useful, not promotional — the forms and references people actually come here looking for.

For owners · design teams · GCsKept current

01 — Why this page exists

Because the paperwork is the hard part.

HCAI work is government-heavy and paperwork-heavy. Facilities teams — psychiatric units especially, where construction is infrequent and institutional memory is thin — regularly do not know which form applies, which notice governs, or what sequence the submittals go in.

This page is the answer to that. Not a brochure: a set of live references you can send to a colleague, pull up in a meeting, or work from on site.

If a facilities director can solve a problem on this page without calling anyone, the page has done its job — and SME is the firm they remember when the next project starts.

02 — The library

Official sources, kept to the ones that matter.

01CANs, PINs, FAQs & CodesHCAI's own library of Code Application Notices and Policy Intent Notices — how interpretation actually gets applied on a project.Open → 02Advisory Guides, Forms, Webinars & EducationThe HCAI forms and advisory guides most projects need, in one place.Open → 03Building Permits & Construction ObservationWhere the Inspector of Record requirement sits in the HCAI permit process.Open → 04HCAI Reporting Portalreport.hcai.ca.gov — facility data and reporting.Open → 05HCAI Building SafetyThe regulator's own front door for construction. Formerly OSHPD.Open → 06NFPA codes & standardsFire and life-safety standards relevant to occupied healthcare construction and phased renovation.Open → 07Division of the State Architect (DSA)The education-sector counterpart to HCAI, for schools and campus facilities.Open →

Waiting on you, Shane: the rest of the forms and links you want living here — and the SOP you mentioned that was missing from both concept designs. Send them in any form and they get added to this list. This is the page most likely to bring a hospital administrator back a second time, so it is worth loading up.

Start a conversation about your project.

SME works by relationship and reputation. The fastest way in is a direct note about the project — Shane reads them himself.

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