insights
Are You Using Your EVS Data to the Fullest?
ES Optimizer users have a goldmine of data about their facilities at their fingertips. But, how do you get the most out of that data for your Environmental Services Department?
ES Optimizer is a powerful database that manages key information about the space in your facility, its cleaning requirements, and the hours required to maintain it.
With hundreds of facilities using ES Optimizer, we have over 700 million square feet of space logged in the ES Optimizer database. A typical ES Optimizer facility has 730,000 square feet and 250 staffed beds. For each cleanable space (AKA “room”) in your ES Optimizer database, you can see:
- square footage
- floor type
- number of fixtures (such as sinks and showers)
- room type
- cleaning steps
- cleaning frequency
- cleaning time
Below, we’ll talk about just some of the ways to use your data to drastically reduce the time you spend managing EVS operations.
Calculating Staffing Requirements
Full Staffing Analysis
ES Optimizer is most well known for calculating the FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) requirements based on real facility data when it is first set up for your facility. You’ll know every detail from what your total budget is down to what each EVS Tech will be doing.
Calculating FTEs for Project Work
Since project work does not happen on a daily basis, it can be hard to estimate the time needed for it alongside the daily assignments. Without good data, planning for project work involves a lot of guesswork, which often results in you dropping scheduled work to put out fires.
In the ES Optimizer database, project work is automatically calculated for a room based on its room type (view the Periodic Planning Worksheet). So, you can calculate the time needed to cover all project work across all rooms and be able to put the right EVS techs in place ahead of time to accomplish it with Periodic Assignments.
These two steps above are typically the actions you take when you first get ES Optimizer. But, you can also go back to your ES Optimizer data again and again to calculate proposed changes in your staffing, like:
- Making a case for switching floor types:
Hard finish floors generally require more annual hours to maintain than carpet or a non-finish floor. Using your ES Optimizer data, you can run “What-If” scenarios using different floor types to see the difference in annual maintenance hours. - Estimating FTEs in the face of sudden changes in requirements:
During COVID, many facilities had to add a second clean to patient rooms and increase isolation cleans, both of which increased labor needs. Again, you can call on your facility data to calculate the impact these changes will have on your department, by calculating the additional hours needed to meet them. If you are fortunate enough to be able to supplement your staff, you can increase the service level in your public areas and hire the right number of people and know where to put them. But if, like many departments, it isn’t an option to simply add staff, you can use your data to determine how much time you need to shift away from less critical work in order to meet the new requirements. - Forecasting FTEs for new buildings:
ES Optimizer Staffing Analysis is not just for your existing space. You can also use it to project FTEs needed for new spaces, like new buildings on campus or new clinics throughout the community. Once the data is entered in ES Optimizer, you won’t have to guess: you’ll know exactly what it will take to clean the new space based on your current program used on the rest of your campus.
Setting the Right Expectations
No one understands your department’s needs better than you do. But, how do you communicate those needs to people less familiar with the ins and outs of EVS work? Here are some examples of how you can use your ES Optimizer data to help you set expectations:
Requests to Reduce Your Overall Budget
If you are tasked with a reduction in staffing during budget season, ES Optimizer can help you set expectations of service that will be provided.
Different levels of clean come with different FTE requirements: whether it’s Trash and Grab, Standard or Premium. You can use your data to show exactly which services will be reduced and in which areas of the hospital, down to the frequency of office cleaning. View the Rooms Affected — What If Report here.
Illustrating the Real-World Impact of Outside Recommendations
When consultants less familiar with environmental services suggest changes to your EVS program, they need your detailed feedback. For instance, if FTE requirements are proposed based on comparing your facility to another of similar square footage, you can find the data that helps them understand your facility’s requirements vs. another facility’s, beyond just square footage, such as:
- Percent of Clinical Space vs. Non-Clinical
- Volume through the OR and ER
- Amount of office space vs. high-traffic corridors
- Cleanable square footage vs. Total square footage — Some square footages include parking garages, which EVS does not typically clean.
View the Square Feet by Room Type Report
As you know, these are the details that truly determine cleaning requirements.
Price Out Supplies for Projects
With your ES Optimizer data, understanding the cost of a new project doesn’t have to be a guessing game. You can price out exactly what it costs to get what you need for projects like:
Replacing Cubicle Curtains
If you want to switch from reusable cubicle curtains to disposable, there is a feature in each room in the database where you can input the number of curtains in a room. With this data, you can run a report to determine the amount of cubicle curtains needed and the ongoing financial impact of this switch.
Calculating the Coverage Area for Floor Finish
If you’re getting ready to refinish your floors, you can run a report to show the amount of hard-surface square footage in your facility to determine how many gallons of floor finish you’ll need. View the Buildings Square Feet by Floor Type report here.
Estimating Paper Towel Dispensers in Public Restrooms
You can use ES Optimizer reports to pull the number of public restrooms in your facility, along with their square footage number. You will estimate the number of dispensers in each restroom based on their size.
Procuring Equipment that Best Fits the Size of Facility
Using your data, you can provide your vendors with the total square footage of hard-surface floors or carpeted corridors in your facility, which they can use to recommend the proper piece of equipment that would be the most efficient for your facility. For instance, if you only have 10,000 square feet of carpeted corridors, you’re probably not going to need the largest, most powerful carpet extractor, and your vendor can make a more appropriate recommendation based on that data.
As EVS Teams are responsible for hundreds of thousands of tasks, your facility data is the foundation for work assignments, scheduling, quality management and so much more. These are just some of the ways you can use your ES Optimizer data to expedite your work, set priorities, reach department goals, and handle any emergencies that come up.
For more ideas on how to use your data, you can call us anytime at 800–260-8665, ext. 8 or email info@smartfacilitysoftware.com.
Not an ES Optimizer customer yet?
Call us at 800–260-8665 ext. 1, email jmowrey@smartfacilitysoftware.com or schedule a demo with us today.