If we have a piece of medical equipment with a "Hospital Grade" cap on the cord must it be provided with a "Hospital Grade" receptacle?

Nope.

If a location required everything to be 'hospital grade,' then both cap and recep would need to meet the requirements. However, there is nothing that forbids placing the appliance in other locations.

"Hospital grade" simply means that the devices meet tougher criteria. Indeed, the practice of sever manufacturers is to simply pull product off their regular production line, and stamp those specific pieces that meet the higher standards. In terms of ordinary use, the components are perfectly interchangeable.

Listing and Labeling of the equipment with the plug prehaps?? Might be worth a look to see if Equipment requires it??

Hospital grade means they have to conform to certain hospital UL standards and are built better than the average cheap plug, but they still conform to NEMA 5-15 and all applicable standard UL listings for plugs. It's perfectly acceptable to plug a hospital plug into a non-hospital receptacle.

http://www.interpower.com/ic/medical_info.asp

Steve- Based on your reference to "interpower" (which was excellent) I feel that it would be reasonable to look for a hospital grade receptacle when inspecting the job since the grounding is the whole reason for installing the hospital grade cap on the cord. The hospital grade receptacle would provide similar standards and be compatible with the cap. Am I in left field?

George, actually providing the equipment with a HG cord cap just means it is acceptable for use at a Patient Bed.

Even though most of this equipment has some mention of "Superior Grounding" being an issue, it really has no bearing on an HG receptacle being required.

If the equipment is used outside a Patient Care Area, the redundant grounding required by 517.13 is not present anyways.

Roger