In today’s health­care world of ACO’s, Val­ue Based health­care and LEAN man­age­ment sys­tem the EVS depart­ment has a real strate­gic oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute EVS staffing exper­tise that may save your med­ical cen­ter or facil­i­ty thou­sands.

The third of three pos­si­ble staffing oppor­tu­ni­ties in Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices Depart­ments includes: Col­lec­tions Ser­vices Man­age­ment 

Col­lec­tions Ser­vices Man­age­ment means the process of sort­ing, han­dling, trans­port­ing, seg­re­gat­ing, pack­ag­ing, recy­cling and pro­cess­ing all of the used prod­ucts and byprod­ucts of the health­care sys­tem from the point of gen­er­a­tion to the point of final dis­pos­al or dis­po­si­tion. The col­lec­tion process includes the man­ag­ing of all soiled linen prod­ucts as well as all med­ical, bio­haz­ardous, patho­log­i­cal, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, haz­ardous, sharps, con­fi­den­tial, recy­clable, and food waste.  The mag­ni­tude of the job is often under­stat­ed or con­sid­ered unsci­en­tif­ic yet in actu­al­ly, col­lec­tions man­age­ment requires sig­nif­i­cant amount of fore­cast­ing, plan­ning and care­ful exe­cu­tion to suc­ceed in today’s health­care area. The job of the EVS leader man­ag­ing col­lec­tion is to accu­rate­ly pre­dict the tim­ing, vol­ume, and prod­uct type which will be gen­er­at­ed in each depart­ment and arrange a col­lec­tions trip before the recep­ta­cles, carts, bins, chutes, com­pactors, balers, and oth­er col­lec­tion devices are over filled.

Strate­gic Col­lec­tion Devices- the selec­tion of waste and linen recep­ta­cles are far more than a design ele­ment from a cost of labor per­spec­tive because each trip to each recep­ta­cle results in both labor and mate­ri­als expense if the recep­ta­cle lin­er is changed. Lin­ers can cost from 5 cents each to 35 cents each depend­ing on type and size of the lin­er. The larg­er the recep­ta­cle and the few­er trips each day to the emp­ty the recep­ta­cle, the low­er the labor costs for col­lec­tion ser­vices. In addi­tion to select­ing the largest pos­si­ble waste and linen recep­ta­cle for each area, it is also impor­tant to select the largest and most appro­pri­ate col­lec­tion carts for these items. Ele­va­tor size, soiled util­i­ty room square footage, cor­ri­dor access and of course work­er safe­ty are all impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tions, how­ev­er the larg­er the col­lec­tion device, the few­er col­lec­tion routes and trips need­ed. Facil­i­ties that have the abil­i­ty to uti­lize a ver­ti­cal chute, cart lift/transport and/or train cart sys­tems with motor­ized dri­ve units have the abil­i­ty to reduce their col­lec­tion costs and work­place injuries sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

Mon­i­tor­ing Med­ical Cen­ter Activ­i­ty- effec­tive Col­lec­tions Man­age­ment is high­ly depen­dent on the EVS department’s aware­ness of med­ical cen­ter activ­i­ty which means much more than just know­ing the inpa­tient cen­sus. The vol­ume and type of surg­eries, patient dis­charges, num­ber of births, out­pa­tient appoint­ments, cafe­te­ria menu, pro­ce­dure vol­ume, weath­er and spe­cial events can all impact the vol­ume and loca­tion of waste and linen prod­ucts to be col­lect­ed. With effec­tive mon­i­tor­ing of all of the activ­i­ties, EVS has a much bet­ter chance of fore­cast­ing col­lec­tion needs on the cam­pus. For exam­ple, in August when the num­ber of births is usu­al­ly high­est, the need for col­lec­tions of both waste and linen will be heav­ier than in Feb­ru­ary. Even a favorite meal in the cafe­te­ria, a sale in the gift shop, annu­al flu shot event, or a hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tion can change the vol­ume of prod­ucts for col­lec­tion routes. The abil­i­ty for the EVS depart­ment to cap­ture the med­ical cen­ter activ­i­ty for col­lec­tions plan­ning is essen­tial.

Val­i­dat­ing Col­lec­tion Routes – The reg­u­lar val­i­da­tion of waste and linen col­lec­tion routes will enable the depart­ment to adjust routes and save labor as linen and waste prod­ucts decrease in any area. If the phar­ma­cy begins receiv­ing their drugs in plas­tic totes instead of card­board box­es, then the num­ber of card­board pick­ups and the amount of baler time need­ed changes dra­mat­i­cal­ly. If the semes­ter for nurs­ing stu­dents’ ends and the 30 stu­dents are no longer on the med/surg unit prac­tic­ing bed mak­ing skills, the amount of soiled linen may decrease sig­nif­i­cant­ly dur­ing the sum­mer.  An audit of each col­lec­tion route should be com­plet­ed twice annu­al­ly to val­i­date the needs and route to be sure they match cur­rent med­ical cen­ter col­lec­tion vol­umes and needs. The audit process of trail­ing each col­lec­tions tech­ni­cian for an entire shift may seem tedious, yet the results in terms of real­ized labor sav­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and improved ser­vices can be sig­nif­i­cant. Once the audits for all routes and shifts s have been com­plet­ed, adjust­ments to the routes, changes in equip­ment or updat­ed staff edu­ca­tion can be made with a more holis­tic col­lec­tions sys­tem view­point.

For more infor­ma­tion on soft­ware sys­tems to help you with Cen­sus Based Staffing, Inva­sive Care Case Response Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty or Col­lec­tions Ser­vices Man­age­ment vis­it www.smartfacilitysoftware.com

Cindy E. Paget has worked in health­care since 1986, pro­vid­ing lead­er­ship devel­op­ment and con­sult­ing for Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices and Human Resources. Cindy is a mem­ber of AHE, is both CHESP and SPHR cer­ti­fied and serves as a con­ven­tion speak­er and writer for health­care lead­er­ship learn­ing events. Cindy holds a dual degree BS in Busi­ness Administration/Information Sys­tems and an MA in Orga­ni­za­tion­al Lead­er­ship and lives in Sequim, WA.