Role of EVS Software in Raising HCAHPS Scores

In our pre­vi­ous arti­cle, HCAHPS and the Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices Depart­ment, we out­lined which ques­tions on the HCAHPS sur­vey are most rel­e­vant to envi­ron­men­tal ser­vice tech­ni­cians. Those ques­tions are:

Ques­tion 8: Dur­ing this hos­pi­tal stay, how often were your room and bath­room kept clean? 

Ques­tion 18: Using any num­ber from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst hos­pi­tal pos­si­ble and 10 is the best hos­pi­tal pos­si­ble, what num­ber would you use to rate this hos­pi­tal dur­ing your stay?

Now that we know how the envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices depart­ment impacts HCAHPS scores, how can your depart­ment, already mak­ing the best use of your resources, boost their scores?  Incor­po­rat­ing spe­cial­ized EVS Soft­ware (beyond your ADT sys­tem) give you the tools to take qual­i­ty to the next lev­el by shav­ing hours off of man­age­r­i­al duties and bring­ing key infor­ma­tion to light.

A few key com­po­nents to reach­ing and main­tain­ing high­er HCAHPS scores:

  • Right staffing lev­els
  • Know­ing the work that’s get­ting done
  • Well-man­aged Qual­i­ty Assur­ance pro­gram

These are com­po­nents that require EVS soft­ware to be man­aged well due to the sheer vol­ume of infor­ma­tion that goes into each.

Prove your Staffing Level Needs with Rigorous Data

EVS Software houses and produces rigorous data. Justify environmental services staffing levels with software.

The EVS depart­ment faces the chal­lenge of main­tain­ing an ade­quate staffing lev­el for effi­cient­ly clean­ing and ster­il­iz­ing patient rooms while also being a major tar­get for cost cut­ting. Jus­ti­fy­ing and main­tain­ing suf­fi­cient staffing lev­els is vital to not only improv­ing HCAHPS scores, but to patient safe­ty and the hospital’s over­all rep­u­ta­tion. 

When an envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices direc­tor has con­crete data to jus­ti­fy staffing needs, it’s hard to dis­pute. The best defense against cuts that will hin­der your EVS department’s effec­tive­ness is a staffing mod­el based on that data.

With ES Opti­miz­er, your data­base will include an inven­to­ry of all clean­able space in your hos­pi­tal as well as any vari­a­tions in clean­ing times and fre­quen­cy. ES Optimizer’s staffing analy­sis mod­ule assess­es the whole pic­ture when deter­min­ing the num­ber of FTEs you need, tak­ing lock-in posi­tions, man­age­ment employ­ees, duties aside from clean­ing includ­ing meet­ings, and non­pro­duc­tive time into account.

 

 

Keep Work Assignments from Falling Through the Cracks

EVS Software efficiently schedules and documents work assignments.

Do you know for sure what tasks your envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices techs are com­plet­ing every day? If you don’t have a con­sis­tent sys­tem for assign­ing and doc­u­ment­ing dai­ly tasks and project work, impor­tant duties are almost cer­tain­ly falling between the cracks. And when clean­ing qual­i­ty suf­fers, so do HCAHPS scores.

More­over, if your method for assign­ing and doc­u­ment­ing envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices duties takes too much pro­duc­tive time out of the day, you and your man­agers are miss­ing out on oppor­tu­ni­ties for qual­i­ty inspec­tions, train­ing, and reg­u­lar­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing with front­line staff to get their input on what’s going on in the hos­pi­tal and boost morale.

EVS depart­ments using ES Opti­miz­er have report­ed reduc­ing time spent on admin­is­tra­tive work by up to 12 hours per pay peri­od, and reduc­ing the labor cost for man­age­ment to gen­er­ate new work assign­ments by up to 98%. Fur­ther­more, with EVS soft­ware, you know that every clean­able space in your hos­pi­tal is account­ed for, and you can pull infor­ma­tion about how recent­ly and how often that room has been cleaned in sec­onds instead of spend­ing hours on spread­sheets and paper doc­u­men­ta­tion.

Doc­u­men­ta­tion becomes even eas­i­er with Ser­vice Opti­miz­er, the mobile com­pan­ion to ES Opti­miz­er that allows EVS techs to view and doc­u­ment dai­ly assign­ments and project work on a mobile device. Man­agers receive real-time sta­tus updates through­out the day, are able to imme­di­ate­ly com­mu­ni­cate any changes to the day’s assign­ments, and save hours of man­u­al­ly enter­ing activ­i­ty records from paper logs.

Manage Issues Before They Are Reflected in HCAHPS Scores

EVS Software manages Quality Inspection Data to keep tabs on your facility’s level of clean and improve it.

After deter­min­ing the cor­rect num­ber of FTEs for your EVS depart­ment and ensur­ing that you have a con­sis­tent method for sched­ul­ing and doc­u­ment­ing work assign­ments, the next step is to refine your department’s cur­rent process­es.

Qual­i­ty inspec­tions are fun­da­men­tal to ensur­ing that clean­ing qual­i­ty is up to stan­dard. And when it isn’t, it’s impor­tant to iden­ti­fy spe­cif­ic areas where your EVS staff requires more train­ing. With ES Opti­miz­er’s qual­i­ty man­age­ment mod­ule, man­agers are eas­i­ly able to select a ran­dom room from the data­base, and their inspec­tion list is auto­mat­i­cal­ly pop­u­lat­ed with that room’s clean­ing steps. 

With step-by-step mon­i­tor­ing, you’ll know exact­ly where your staff’s prob­lems with clean­ing qual­i­ty lie. By adding Sur­vey Opti­miz­er, man­agers can cre­ate and con­duct any sur­vey a facil­i­ty requires, includ­ing black­light sur­veys, ATP sur­veys, and more.

Once you’ve iden­ti­fied the areas where improve­ment is required, sched­ul­ing train­ing is easy with ES Opti­miz­er’s employ­ee train­ing mod­ule. The mod­ule con­tains 30 pre-set class­es that can be cus­tomized to a spe­cif­ic hos­pi­tal, and entire­ly cus­tom class­es can be cre­at­ed with all the same track­ing com­po­nents. EVS man­agers can track atten­dance, absences, tests and scores, and train­ing records for spe­cif­ic employ­ees.

Can’t my hospital’s ADT system do this?

While an Admis­sion, Dis­charge, and Trans­fer (ADT) sys­tem is cru­cial for ensur­ing that dis­charged beds quick­ly turnover to infec­tion-free rooms ready for patient admis­sion, it does not have all the tools required to man­age and improve an envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices depart­ment. An ADT sys­tem can­not give an accu­rate count of FTEs need­ed to clean every area of a hos­pi­tal, nor can it sched­ule and track dai­ly assign­ments and project work. Read more to learn about the EVS gaps in your hospital’s ADT sys­tem.

By using EVS soft­ware to val­i­date your cur­rent process­es and then con­tin­ue to improve them, you will be able to prove that your hos­pi­tal is clean, and that your EVS staff is becom­ing more knowl­edge­able, using con­crete data. As clean­ing qual­i­ty con­sis­tent­ly improves, so will patient per­cep­tion of clean­li­ness, their over­all per­cep­tion of the hos­pi­tal, and HCAH­Ps scores.

Get start­ed with Smart Facil­i­ty Soft­ware Today! Click here and com­plete the form to get your free online demo and per­son­al­ized tour of ES Opti­miz­er.

Read the oth­er arti­cles in our HCAHPS series:

Part One, HCAHPS: Just the Facts

Part Two, HCAHPS and the Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices Depart­ment