Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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New hospital facility service technology aims to improve patient experience
Hospital technology available to manage functions such as room cleaning, heating and cooling maintenance and patient transportation, typically operates on different systems that do not interface with one another. To streamline facility service management, Aramark has integrated multiple systems into a new web-based platform called FacilityFit it was announced today.
"Aramark's new FacilityFit technology is an innovation designed to help hospitals and healthcare facilities drive efficiency and predictability and improve the patient experience through better management of functions that touch patients every day, like room cleaning, heating and cooling, and building maintenance," explained Victor Crawford, Aramark's healthcare chief operating officer.
FacilityFit works through mobile devices, traditional work stations or call centre environments that link facility associates to the system. The platform can be customised for activities including:
* Asset and Work Order Management - where it enables users to schedule maintenance for assets such as boilers, chillers, generators, lighting and other equipment critical to facility operation. This function tracks repair history as well as equipment use and age data to assist with replacement planning. It also enables quick response to address repair needs for structural issues like water leaks or unsafe flooring.
* Space Care Management - where it incorporates variables such as cleanable square feet and inpatient and outpatient volume to create cleaning tasks; and uses the data to develop accurate and equitable staffing models. It also deploys associates for specialized cleaning and maintenance and tracks task completion status and history.
* Bed Management - where it tracks patient discharge, provides automated requests to deploy associates for room cleaning and provides notification when a room is ready for re-occupancy.
* Central Transportation - where it helps schedule patient transport, dispatch transport associates and tracks timelines. This function also coordinates the transport of lab specimens and medical supplies to patient units.
* Inspections/Quality Control - where its capabilities include all facility related quality inspection categories. It randomly selects areas in the building for spot inspection, deploys inspection associates and tracks data for regulatory requirements.
* Personnel Management - where it tracks associate training requirements and completion status, inventories career management activities, tracks individual associate recognition history and enables users to create work schedules.
Across all of these functions, FacilityFit generates reports that offer hospitals and healthcare facilities a real-time operating dashboard to evaluate metrics such as: work completion rates, throughput efficiency, cleaning efficiency, response times, labor utilisation, safety performance, work history and financial efficiency.
"FacilityFit integrates multiple platforms into one user friendly system that is designed and powered by our experts working in hundreds of hospitals and healthcare facilities around the world," said Victor. "It is also available to self-managed organisations that are not Aramark clients for other services."
FacilityFit operates in a highly secure environment and is supported by dedicated Aramark technical experts. The system upgrades automatically and users have access to a 24/7 National Service Centre for ongoing support. When installing FacilityFit, Aramark provides onsite technical expertise to perform space and asset inventories to promote the accuracy of baseline data. Onsite staff also helps to assist with customised system set up and associate training at installation.
Two versions of the technology are available: FacilityFit and FacilityFit Pro. Hospitals and health systems that are not Aramark managed service clients can purchase the standard suite of FacilityFit products and features as a standalone product for use by its self-managed staff.
A version called FacilityFit Pro is an extended suite of products and features that is available as a component of Aramark managed service contracts. All of Aramark's existing facility service clients will transition to FacilityFit Pro and all new managed service clients will get it as part of Aramark's standard operating suite.
"FacilityFit is essentially a 'nerve centre' that provides the technical infrastructure and data to increase the transparency, productivity and control of hospital facility service," added Victor. "The system is a powerful tool that can drive patient satisfaction outcomes, pinpoint capital planning needs and help standardise facility service delivery by comparing performance at different locations."
T: 215-238-3593
E: [email protected]
W: www.aramark.com
28th July 2016