Add data to your expertise.

As an EVS Direc­tor, you’re an expert on the EVS process. When you also become an expert on your hospital’s EVS data, you become a pow­er­ful resource who knows both sides of the coin: how to keep your hos­pi­tal clean, and how to do so while fol­low­ing the most effi­cient bud­get. Becom­ing an expert on your facility’s data begins when you cre­ate a Clean­able Space Inven­to­ry.

A Clean­able Space Inven­to­ry is the detailed data about your actu­al facil­i­ty. And, it’s the foun­da­tion of the industry’s lead­ing and longest run­ning soft­ware for EVS depart­ments, ES Opti­miz­er. When you have a Clean­able Space Inven­to­ry in place, you have the most accu­rate tool avail­able to iden­ti­fy the action­able steps and resources required to keep your hos­pi­tal clean. Your depart­ment can lead the con­ver­sa­tion, and avoid com­mon errors that come from staffing esti­mates based on a com­pos­ite of indus­try norms.

Avoid oversimplification of cleaning requirements

Before adding or cut­ting EVS resources, hav­ing com­pre­hen­sive data about your actu­al facil­i­ty allows you to take into account:

• All clean­able areas, not just patient rooms. This means ORs, cor­ri­dors, restrooms, lob­bies and ele­va­tors that need to be doc­u­ment­ed and logged to a data­base. Not all of these areas are account­ed for in ADT sys­tems.
• Dif­fer­ent floor types and floor­ing fin­ish­es. Dif­fer­ent floor types require dif­fer­ent clean­ing steps, result­ing in dif­fer­ent amounts of time to clean them.
• Types and num­ber of fix­tures in a space. Detailed record of fix­tures, all the way down to whether there is a show­er or sink in a room.
• Room types and lev­el of use. An OR, for instance, has dif­fer­ent clean­ing steps than a patient room or an office.

Faith­ful­ly record­ing these vari­a­tions is what pro­duces a staffing analy­sis based on real­i­ty, not gen­er­al­iza­tions.

Avoid an EVS budget that doesn’t fit your facility

It’s easy for an out­side con­sul­tant to rec­om­mend cut­ting employ­ees. In fact, it’s a com­mon sce­nario. Chris Luci­er, a mem­ber of the Smart Facil­i­ty Soft­ware team, expe­ri­enced this cir­cum­stance first­hand when he was an EVS Direc­tor. He was asked  to cut 20% of his employ­ees, based on a consultant’s rec­om­men­da­tion

Chris asked him­self: How was it pos­si­ble that our staffing lev­els were so far off? How could he pos­si­bly imple­ment the request­ed cuts while main­tain­ing a clean facil­i­ty? Before act­ing on the request, Chris dug into his data, which was housed and orga­nized in ES Opti­miz­er. He was able to report on the impact that the rec­om­mend­ed cuts would have on the clean­li­ness of the hos­pi­tal. The reports showed exact­ly what each of his employ­ees was doing now, and showed the reduc­tion in qual­i­ty that their absence would cause.

He not only saved his employ­ees’ jobs, but saved the rep­u­ta­tion of the hos­pi­tal and health of its patients.

Avoid surprises—set quality expectations

Pro­vid­ing objec­tive and pre­cise num­bers to sup­port your staffing lev­els gives your depart­ment a place in the con­ver­sa­tion. If bud­get cuts become unavoid­able, your EVS data can be used to set expec­ta­tions on how qual­i­ty will change with few­er resources—down to the rooms, the tasks and clean­ing fre­quen­cies.

ES Optimizer is an EVS database that allows you to accurately budget, predict and manage hospital cleaning

The sheer vol­ume of what an EVS depart­ment does every day requires a spe­cial tool to man­age it. You need to account for the num­ber of times your staff vis­its patient rooms, the num­ber of polic­ing assign­ments need­ed to ensure qual­i­ty, and every stair­well, cor­ri­dor, and ele­va­tor. It adds up to hun­dreds of thou­sands of tasks annu­al­ly, and is too much for spread­sheets to han­dle.

The EVS industry’s lead­ing soft­ware, ES Opti­miz­er, is an intu­itive tool for har­ness­ing the pow­er of your data to make effec­tive man­age­ment deci­sions. Cre­at­ing a dynam­ic data­base where you can input and access your facil­i­ty data at any time and from anywhere—a Clean­able Space Inventory—is what sets our tech­nol­o­gy apart. With ES Opti­miz­er you will have the data you need to lead the EVS bud­get­ing con­ver­sa­tion. Con­tact Smart Facil­i­ty Soft­ware to learn more about how to begin.