Managing a healthcare facility involves a wide variety of tasks that protect both people and property while simultaneously providing a welcoming environment for visitors.
Healthcare facilities managers and their teams are the people who keep medical buildings running. Not only are these buildings typically more complex in terms of operations and security, but the gravity of what goes on inside hospitals, clinics, and other care facilities means that facilities management personnel often needs to be invisible so that buildings can appear secure, stable, safe, and inviting all at the same time.
While it may be hard for people to appreciate what healthcare facility managers do, we've created a guide to this critical job to help illuminate their myriad responsibilities and challenges, as well as highlight new technologies to aid in facilities management and the trends that are making healthcare buildings run more effectively and efficiently than ever.
At its core, the function of a healthcare facilities management department and its team fall into five main categories:
HFM teams operate in facilities including:
While the duties of HFM teams can be broken down into innumerable tasks, they work behind the scenes to ensure the building runs smoothly all day so that healthcare teams can do their jobs. And though they don't treat patients, they do play a crucial role in helping to protect private patient information while ensuring it's accessible to those who need it.
Every healthcare facility has its own operational procedures and maintenance schedule. Some buildings require more effort due to their age, while others need more specialized talent to manage state-of-the-art building systems.
In general, the HFM team oversees day-to-day tasks such as:
Some of the HFM team's larger tasks include:
When a healthcare facility is managed well, it can prevent equipment downtime and backlogs in care and reduce the long-term cost of maintaining old equipment or purchasing new equipment. A 2022 Hospital Construction Survey of 381 facilities professionals across the U.S. found that around 35% of hospitals had to perform emergency repairs on machines in the last three years after deferring maintenance. As a result, repairs cost nearly 18% more than average.
A 2021 report from Honeywell titled “Rethinking Healthcare Facilities as Integrated Entities” revealed that a survey of healthcare facility managers in the United States, China, Germany, and Saudi Arabia found that 61% of respondents were more willing to invest in predictive maintenance systems than in pre-pandemic times and 27% will likely procure real-time tracking of people and assets to help enhance operational efficiency. The three improvements respondents said would be of greatest benefit to their facilities' occupants were predictive maintenance (30%), reduced downtime (29%), and better indoor air quality (28%).
Good maintenance and operational efficiency also keep staff and patients safe and satisfied and improve employee productivity. That's just one of the many reasons more hospitals are employing visitor management systems that integrate with tools for contractor management, safety training, geofencing, and compliance management.
Healthcare facilities managers also play essential roles in building and executing both physical and cybersecurity plans for hospitals and care facilities. However, ensuring a hospital stays secure involves multiple departments that need to work together, so cooperation and sharing expertise with safety officers and IT professionals is critical.
Our visitor management system for health and aged care facilities is an example of the type of tool that may be help manage HFM tasks such as:
These tools can be useful to managing the accessibility of healthcare facilities, allowing managers to admit those who need to use the facility while barring anyone who poses a threat. Monitoring guests also allows HFM teams to access real-time information on where guests are located. This helps keep them safe and protects patients, staff, sensitive medical equipment, and patient data (including electronic medical records).
Hospitals have been the targets of persistent and increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. Ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations are increasing at a rate of 94% each year, according to a 2021 report by Sophos. In 2021, 66% of healthcare organizations experienced a ransomware attack (up 34% in 2020), and threats are growing more complex. The report also found that healthcare organizations that paid ransom only got back around 65% of their data in 2021 and that the average cost for healthcare to rectify these attacks is $1.85 million. In addition, 44% of healthcare organizations needed a week to recover from significant attacks, while 25% needed up to one month.
While healthcare facilities may not always be able to stave off cyberattacks, they may be able to use a VMS to streamline compliance processes with the latest security protocols and help restrict access to non-compliant individuals as much as possible.
Investing in effective compliance management may help assist healthcare facilities from reducing the likelihood of breaches and allows HCM teams to automate and digitize regulatory compliance procedures such as document collection and verification.
Compliance software such as Sine's VMS allows HFM teams to:
With new patient needs and evolving technology comes the need to expand and rebuild healthcare facilities. HFM teams typically play a role in everything from the design of new structures to managing safety on construction sites. They may also oversee project budgets.
When healthcare facilities undergo renovations and new construction, it's even more crucial to monitor the people on-site and stay compliant with regulations.
Healthcare facilities and their management teams face new issues and obstacles that require rethinking everything from the way buildings are constructed for maximum efficiency to tracking minute details of people's movements to keep staff, patients, and data secure.
Here are just a few of the new challenges that healthcare facilities management teams are grappling with in light of new security and public health threats and sustainability and safety compliance:
It's crucial for HFMs to create new policies and onboard sophisticated software systems and management tools to meet these challenges.
Honeywell's “Rethinking Healthcare Facilities as Integrated Entities” report found that healthcare facilities are increasingly looking into smart building technologies to increase operational efficiencies. The majority (56%) said these technologies would be most helpful in improving staff productivity and building operations, while 52% were eager to use technology to manage various building systems "through a single platform with unified data and insights."
A digitized visitor management system enhances this convenience, allowing hospitals and aged care facilities alike to:
Managing health and aged care facilities in light of constantly changing restrictions and government regulations requires updating current operational procedures, upgrading technology, and finding ways to prepare for future uncertainties.
Learn more about how Honeywell Forge Visitor and Contractor Management can help your healthcare facilities management team.
