The Importance of Facility Management in the Healthcare Industry

What is the Healthcare Industry?

An organization or business either non-profit organization or profit-oriented public or private organization that render asset and facility management services to the healthcare industry which includes medical wards, sickness bays, healthcare facilities, hospital premises, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals/medicine storage areas, medical litters/used medical kits, etc. whilst providing a safe and hygienic environment to users such as nurses, doctors, outpatients, inpatients, staff, visitors and others is called a facility management services provider to the healthcare industry. Examples of such healthcare industry include central hospitals, retirement homes, nurseries and child care centres, palliative cares, abortion clinics, rehabilitation centres and residential carers and others.

What is Facilities Management?

“Facility management (FM) is a profession that encompasses multiple disciplines to ensure functionality, comfort, safety and efficiency of the built environment by integrating people, place, process and technology.”

International Facility Management Association

In other words, facilities management is a means to people or building facility manager who are responsible for ensuring the smooth operations of the facility, people and buildings to enabling them to work together harmoniously. Facilities management prioritizes the cleanliness, saves money, provides employee safety, improves productivity and satisfies customers. In the healthcare industry, facilities management is an important key to keep the organization operate smoothly and safe whilst maintaining a healthy environment. Healthcare facilities management cares about the patients’ quality of life and saves patients from deaths. For instance, the hospital management maintains the medical facilities by preventing power or equipment failures so that there will be no interruption during surgical operations. These are the following factors on the importance of facilities management:

1. Improving Patient Experience for Inpatients and Outpatients

The patient’s first impression with hospital services and healthcare facilities plays an important role to win brand loyalty since the patients have the choices whether to use the hospital facilities or otherwise. Cleanliness, waiting time, employee friendliness, customer services, availability of friendly-user furniture and available healthcare facilities will define patients’ experience.

• Stress

  The patient expects smooth experience, tranquillity and satisfying healthcare outcome because he or she has paid an expensive cost for good healthcare services. Facilities management must ensure the ambience and the services induces the patient’s feeling of safety, peacefulness and serenity when entering the hospital premises. Without such facilities management, there will be long queues for patients, the uncleanliness state of the medical centres and fears of diseases spreading and illness break lose which will deter people from coming to the hospital.

• Sight

  Facilities management must create a positive impact and good impression in the eyes of customers in order to create a conducive human experience for patients and a feel-good factor as well. When a patient facing any difficulty such accessibility to the hospital, unwelcoming services, uninviting atmosphere, this will drive away any potential patients to the competitors. Therefore, cleanliness, welcoming attitudes of the staff, the easiness in finding car parks location and clear building signage are important factors to increase customer’s first impression towards hospital facilities.

• Sound

  According to the Archives of Internal Medicine, intense noise levels can cause patients to lose sleep and slow their ability to heal. Facilities management can overcome this problem by installing medical device alarms and monitor the alarm occurrence to control the noises produced especially at night time or during emergency times. Another method adopted by some facilities manager either at nights or evenings is to dim the lights to create a quiet atmosphere and help patients to sleep. Healthcare industry considers controlling noises is beneficial to patients as it reduces patient stress, fatigue and improves satisfaction.

• Smell

  Bad odours make a healthy person feel stress, moody and dizzy with nausea sometimes, thus, on sick people, it will be double even triple depending on the sickness they are in. Therefore, it is important for the healthcare facilities management to take great action in taking care facilities ventilation. Pleasant odour creates welcoming customer experience as it increases patients’ or visitors’ good mood and feeling of happiness. The scent creates freshness, cosiness and encourages openness feelings especially in a crowded atmosphere which helps to reduce anxiety levels and improves patients’ recovery at faster times.

• Taste

  Facility manager in the healthcare industry should be able to cater to new meals options and keep updating the menus on a continual basis as well as improving on meal presentation to the patients. Their services should include sending the meals to the patients’ rooms that emphasize on nutritional value, minimal food wastage, affordable meals and increasing patients’ satisfaction. Tasty and high-quality foods will encourage patients to get enthusiastic about eating hospital meals.

2. Better Healthcare Environment

Healthcare facilities need to focus on managing waste flows and efficient water consumption for better integration between the hospital in its environment. They could create a friendly visual and educational design on the facilities such as litter bins aims to raise awareness on cleanliness for a start whereby eventually, people start to change behaviour to throw litters and lesser work for staff to collect litter. An informative instruction guide explanation help on how to use smart bins and cartoon dustbin with cartoon face as well as logo signage help people to utilize it.

3. Improving Efficiency

Facilities management can help to coordinate patients’ room data, medical facilities, building equipment, security, cleanliness and maintenance. The healthcare industry top priority is to deliver the best care service, ensure safety and hygiene for patients. For example, with an automated technology metrics, it allows the employees or the facilities manager to receive real-time alerts, customer feedbacks, electrical energy consumption and other information through smartphones. Emergency lighting in facilities management preventive maintenance is very important to ensure that all the emergency light to check the functionality on a monthly basis. Replacement of such energy light should be done whenever there is faulty of light bulbs in healthcare. Emergency lighting in facilities management preventive maintenance is very important to ensure that all the emergency lights are to be checked on its functionality on a regular basis. They should be ensured to be in working order at all times. Replacements of such energy lights should be undertaken whenever there are faulty light bulbs or whenever their life cycles indicated that they are required to be replaced.

4. Preventing Risk of Disinfection

One of the facilities management’s objectives is to avoid spreading of bacteria or viruses in the hospital building that will affect patients and hospital staff well-being. For instance, the medical centre management needs to ensure that employees are trained using UV lights when required and safeguarding the UV lightroom to operate patients. The medical facilities managers will regularly check on operating rooms and keep track of whether the rooms or equipment tools were disinfected at all times. Healthy people can be easily contaminated with germs, bacteria and virus from infectious diseases which are easily contaminated in the hospital building especially to a less resistance immune system patients or employee workers, seniors and newborn babies. Thus, proper anti-septic cleaning maintenance services could remove the microorganisms in the air coming from the wardrooms. Installing a good ventilation system and frequent change of the filters will prevent airborne diseases in the air from spreading and also helps to clean the purified air from dust and other microorganisms. Atalian Global Services offers bio cleaning, a combination of cleaning, utilization of disinfection and remove waste or contaminated item in order to decrease the biological contamination.

5. Cost Savings and Cost Effective

The hospital care centres shall be free from encumbrances and liabilities especially from legal suits from the third party. They are liable to pay hefty compensations for any acts of negligence on injured patients during treatment. Any negligent actions caused by hospital employees, doctors, nurses and the facilities management during the treatment of patients will be subjected to legal liabilities and claims. Therefore, the facilities management should ensure that all medical facility and assets are properly maintained and comprehensively serviced by a professional team to prevent such lawsuits. A well-maintained medical centre regularly improves communications, patients’ safety care, building maintenance and minimise the risks of legal costs.

Finally, we at the Atalian Global Services offer the best professional facilities management to all medical assets and facilities at optimum levels at all times. We also comprehensively maintain hygienic cleanliness while ensuring a healthy environment for patients, staff and others. Do contact us today; we provide alternative solutions to facilitate the healthcare industry with no more worries from you!