Biggest Healthcare Facility Management Challenges post-Pandemic

With every existing resource fighting the pandemic, hospitals are challenged to ensure safety and competence in their processes wherever possible and to lower their spending. By streamlining facility management procedures, more resources can be dedicated to fighting the ongoing crisis. As a result, healthcare settings have begun to majorly outsource these services to dedicated firms.

Moreover, despite the rising patient service standards, the healthcare sector faces numerous operational challenges, which is why the healthcare facility management industry will reach $180,397.0 million by the year 2030. The following section details the key healthcare facility management challenges and the steps being taken to address them around the world, especially in a world that is still not out of the woods, as far as the pandemic is concerned.

Cleanliness and Hygiene

Cleanliness and sanitation are vital in healthcare settings, with the focus on these aspects having increased manifold since 2020. Obviously, healthcare-associated infections or nosocomial contaminations must be prevented as much as possible, as they often have high mortality rates and costs. Reducing the danger of HAIs involves active and regular cleaning, equipment disinfection (including sterilization), and waste management. Good air quality, sunlight, and cross ventilation are also essential.?

At any time, according to the WHO, 1.4 million people globally suffer from HAIs, which infect about 2 million people and lead to around 80,000 deaths each year. The most-common HAIs are central line-associated bloodstream infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, and catheter-associated urinary tract infections, while the most-common pathogens are Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Similarly, many of the COVID-19 cases have been nosocomial in nature, which, with proper sanitation standards, could have been prevented.?

Security

Security at healthcare facilities aims to guard the assets, staff, patients, and visitors from outside threats. But, the state of affairs is pretty tricky because of the continuous visitor traffic, round-the-clock operations, and hectic emergency situations. Security can be accomplished both through manual or automated means; however, a large number of medical facilities leverage a combination of both.

Automated security measures help in the reduction in the need for physical monitoring. For hospitals, it is almost impossible to focus on security issues without automated assistance. Some of the automated security solutions that can be used in hospitals and other medical facilities include:

? Video surveillance, for the immediate reporting of any concerns related to security to the chosen persona.

? Remote monitoring of important systems, such as fire alarms, life-saving systems, and fire suppression systems.

? Internet of things, to control access to restricted areas. For instance, codes to smart locks can be given based on authority level; the locks can also send alerts to mobile applications instantly.

Energy Efficiency

Because of the round-the-clock services offered by hospitals and the diverse equipment and backup systems they have, energy consumption in the healthcare sector is on the higher side. The Premier Safety Institute says that the second-most energy-intensive industry in the U.S. is healthcare. Correspondingly, each year, hospitals shell over $10 billion on energy.

This is the main reason that nations now need healthcare services to implement measures for the reduction of energy use. Unquestionably, this means that these administrations would be involved in ways to decrease the consumption of energy without risking vital services. This would involve timely electrical appliance maintenance, to ensure it doesn’t consume any more energy than it should.

Equipment Upkeep

It is extremely important to maintain the hospital equipment and surgical tools in such a manner that nobody who uses them faces any problem, neither does the patient on whom it is being used; all this, while ensuring cost-effectiveness. An unplanned shutdown of critical equipment, such as imaging systems, cardiac monitors, ventilators, and ECMO machines, may bring about serious medical conditions and even death.

But, attaining this kind of service and also keeping the expenses in check calls for masterful planning, along with the use of specific tools. Luckily, technical advancements have made available several tools for this process, which also helps healthcare providers shun the hit-and-trial philosophy of the past.

For example, tools are available for the automation of several features of daily upkeep, particularly hi-tech maintenance management systems. This essentially leads to a combination of predictive and preventive maintenance, generally allowed by the IoT sensors integrated into various parts of the machine. For an even more hi-tech approach, digital twins can be used to simulate the workings of medical systems virtually, to act before a failure occurs.

Further, mobile-enabled maintenance software is indispensable for hospitals in today’s time. It offers faster access to information to the team 24/7, thus making it possible to monitor the operation of medical equipment remotely.

Despite the numerous challenges faced by healthcare facilities in recent times, contemporary maintenance management systems offer a chance to meet their ends under constraints, while still maintaining patient satisfaction. All this can be attained faster and with better outcomes with the utilization of proactive ideas for creating and maintaining a healthy patient environment.