insights
A staffing analysis based on EVS benchmarking is likely a few sizes too big, or too small, for you.
Whether you’re refreshing a site inventory, or doing one for the first time, the accuracy of your data will have long lasting effects on your department’s success.
In a previous article, we talked about the importance of a site inventory for managing EVS. In this article, we’ll talk about the accuracy of staffing levels that are based on benchmarking versus those based on a site inventory.
When benchmark consultants are engaged for your facility, their expertise and focus is generally on the clinical staff. Nursing staffing, for example, varies by criticality and is estimated on a nurses-per-patient basis. For the same consultants, EVS staffing is often an afterthought. Most important, the expertise applied to clinical staffing is not the same as that required for EVS staffing. While patients come and go, the hospital does not. The math for estimating EVS staffing levels is altogether different.
EVS staffing benchmarking is based on estimating the average FTEs required per square foot. Unavoidably, however, the data is drawn from a range of facilities, each with different environmental management variables. The estimates are not tied to your facility’s room types, surfaces and cleaning requirements, just to name a few criteria. The resulting analysis is generally an overestimate, or underestimate, of your staffing needs.
A site inventory, on the other hand, gathers data by measuring your actual facility, tailoring staffing levels to your specific space and unique tasks. It’s not simply a matter of looking at facility blueprints; there are many measurements involved. Here are the details that Smart Facility Software collects to create a cleanable site inventory — and, therefore — an accurate EVS staffing level.
A Cleanable Site Inventory Includes:
Room Description
A carefully constructed room name that makes it clear where the room or space is located.
For example — Building.Floor #.Subsection.Room Name
Days/Week Coverage
Number of days each week the space should be cleaned.
Daily Cleaning Requirements
Based on the Room Type, the cleaning tasks required in the space each day it is scheduled to be cleaned.
Project Cleaning Requirements
Tasks required for project work in each space and their annual frequencies.
Room Size
The size of each room or space is measured and documented in the database. Room sizes are used to calculate cleaning times for the space.
Floor Surface
The floor surface of each room is documented and informs the cleaning tasks and time requirements associated with the room.
Cleaning Time Adjustments for Special Items
This field lets you account for any variables unique to a room that will affect cleaning times.
Order of Rooms
This often overlooked detail is the order you encounter the rooms and spaces as you walk the facility. While this is not needed for a Staffing analysis, it does make the data set ready for use in building work assignments.
Multiple Uses for Data
When done right, the data set plays multiple functions in EVS Department management in addition to Staffing Analyses. Work Assignments, Calculating types of EVS Techs needed, and recording QA Inspections results, for example, are more efficient and accurate when your department’s operations are tied to your actual facility data.
Learn more about the advantages of a Site Inventory, and how the pros do it.