A Site Inventory: The Advantages of Having Your Actual and Unique Facility Data

Most EVS Directors have experienced this phenomenon:

A staffing analy­sis bench­mark­ing report comes back with the poten­tial for sig­nif­i­cant savings—if its rec­om­men­da­tions are suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed. But in prac­tice, you may have noticed your team strug­gling to imple­ment those changes with­out sac­ri­fic­ing qual­i­ty or ser­vice lev­el. EVS Direc­tors com­mon­ly grap­ple with ris­ing HAI rates—needing to bal­ance thor­ough clean­ing with finan­cial and staffing lim­i­ta­tions. That’s why it’s so impor­tant to base deci­sion mak­ing on good data. When it comes to staffing analy­sis, the dif­fer­ence between what’s the­o­ret­i­cal­ly pos­si­ble and what’s actu­al­ly doable comes down to bas­ing reports on your facility’s actu­al data and unique EVS pro­gram. Actu­al data—obtainable by con­duct­ing a site inven­to­ry (also known as a clean­able space inventory)—improves the accu­ra­cy of any staffing analy­sis.

Of the approximately 6,000 hospitals in the United States, square footage spans a broad range. The total average square footage in 2023 was 356,000 square feet. Facilities with fewer than 100 beds averaged under 200,000 square feet, while the largest facilities, with over 250 beds, averaged 1.1 million square feet. The remaining facilities, with 101 to 250 beds, averaged 444,000 square feet.¹

¹Definitive Healthcare

The Theory of Benchmarking

Staffing analy­ses that rely on bench­mark­ing com­pare data sets from mul­ti­ple facil­i­ties and use aver­ages to pre­scribe the lev­el of EVS staff need­ed per square foot. This can be use­ful, in terms of pro­vid­ing a sense of indus­try norms.

But aver­ages are just that: many facil­i­ties have high­er staffing lev­els, and many have low­er lev­els, based on the unique sit­u­a­tion in those facil­i­ties. And it’s not just square footage that affects those staffing lev­els.

The Limit of Benchmarking

Mul­ti­ple fac­tors affect staffing lev­els beyond just square footage, such as:

• Type of space (what is the mix of office space, ERs, ORs, patient rooms, wait­ing rooms, etc.)
• The vol­ume of patient room dis­charges and trans­fer cleans;
• Patient room cen­sus occu­pan­cy;
• Man­age­ment team-to-employ­ee ratios, as well as the spe­cif­ic respon­si­bil­i­ties of the man­age­ment team;
• Pub­lic area polic­ing and porter duties (ser­vice request respons­es);
• Paid break time per shift;
• The amount of lock-in areas cleaned, such as ER, L&D, NICU, Inva­sive Radi­ol­o­gy, Surg­eries, Cath Labs, etc. — areas
  that need mul­ti-shift EVS atten­tion due to clean­ing between cas­es, or con­stant turnover;
• Vol­ume of non-clean­ing tasks: such as meet­ing set-ups or sup­ply room stock­ing.

An Example of Square Footage Comparisons

If, for instance, there are two facil­i­ties that both have the same square footage, but one of them has twice the amount of patient rooms, that facil­i­ty will inevitably need more employ­ee hours to reach the same qual­i­ty of ser­vice and clean­ing. And while some fac­tors are account­ed for in bench­mark­ing num­bers, the fac­tors vary wide­ly by facil­i­ty, and con­trol­ling for all of them is dif­fi­cult.

Apples to Apples?

There are also oth­er vari­ables to con­sid­er when it comes to bench­mark­ing. As with any analy­sis, you have to make sure that you’re com­par­ing apples to apples.

Here are some of the ques­tions that a hos­pi­tal should con­sid­er before using bench­mark­ing for EVS staffing lev­els:

Are the facil­i­ties in a bench­mark­ing report sim­i­lar to your
own facil­i­ty? You want to be sure that the facil­i­ties a report is based on are sim­i­lar to your own when it comes to the
fac­tors list­ed above.

Do these facil­i­ties achieve the lev­el of clean­li­ness that your facil­i­ty aspires to have? The aver­age HCAHPS rat­ing among US hos­pi­tals for clean­li­ness is 3 out of 5 stars.

Are the facil­i­ties under­staffed? The trend in most facil­i­ties over time has been con­tin­u­al­ly decreased staffing in response to hos­pi­tal bud­get cuts. Some hos­pi­tals in bench­mark­ing stud­ies, there­fore, are oper­at­ing under­staffed and could pro­duce arti­fi­cial­ly low expec­ta­tions for the hours need­ed to main­tain qual­i­ty in your facil­i­ty.

Adding Actual Data to Benchmarking

Creating a facility’s Cleanable Space Inventory requires actually walking the space to take and document laser measurements of cleanable areas, while noting the type of space and general procedures associated with each measurement.

A facility’s unique variables

A staffing analy­sis based on an actu­al facil­i­ty, rather than only bench­mark­ing aver­ages, pro­vides answers for the actu­al cri­te­ria in the cat­e­gories men­tioned above: Man­age­r­i­al to staff ratios, oper­a­tional data such as OR cas­es and dis­charge vol­ume, and the unique cir­cum­stances regard­ing lock-ins or tasks such linen dis­tri­b­u­tion and sup­ply room stock­ing. Most impor­tant, the fun­da­men­tal piece of actu­al data is the mea­sure­ment of the actu­al, unique space. This mea­sure­ment is referred to as the Clean­able Space Inven­to­ry or Site Inven­to­ry.

Cleanable Space Inventory:

The Core of an Accurate Database for Your Unique Facility

At its core, ES Opti­miz­er is an inven­to­ry of every clean­able space of a unique facil­i­ty, with clean­ing met­rics for each room. Instead of a mod­el based only on bench­marked stan­dards, the data­base con­tains actu­al and unique sets of floors, rooms, and clean­able spaces.

Staffing data by Rooms, Buildings, Floors, Areas

Rooms are orga­nized by build­ings, floors, areas, assigned tasks, and clean­ing fre­quen­cies.

Vital Cleaning Metrics by Room Type

Vital clean­ing met­rics are assigned to each room by room type, square footage/units, floor sur­face, and clean­ing steps.

Cleaning Times and Task Frequencies

Clean­ing times and task fre­quen­cies for each room are eas­i­ly viewed and adjust­ed.

A completed Cleanable Space Inventory will breakdown the space by building, floor, subsection and specific areas such as rooms.

Walking the space, first hand

A Clean­able Space Inven­to­ry is cre­at­ed by lit­er­al­ly walk­ing the floors of a hos­pi­tal facil­i­ty to deter­mine its scope and spe­cif­ic needs. Each facility’s data­base cap­tures not only its square footage, but also fac­tors like the type of space, fix­tures in that space, and acu­ity.

Add up every variable

Including a Cleanable Space Inventory

When a staffing analy­sis also takes into account your facility’s Clean­able Space Inven­to­ry and oth­er spe­cif­ic EVS clean­ing pro­to­cols, vari­ables and tasks [such as lock-ins, waste removal, and non-pro­duc­tive time], a facility’s staffing analy­sis achieves the great­est accu­ra­cy. Man­agers can build work assign­ments that meet the needs of a unique facil­i­ty and bud­get.

Budgeting A Staffing Analysis Based On Actual Facility Data

Figuring your investment

How much invest­ment is required to add actu­al facil­i­ty data to your staffing analy­sis? For the Clean­able Space Inven­to­ry com­po­nent only, the gen­er­al rule of thumb is an effi­cient $175 for every 10,000 square feet. Of course, because our top­ic here is stress­ing the unique­ness of each facil­i­ty, Smart Facil­i­ty Soft­ware can pro­vide a more accu­rate esti­mate for the total cost of col­lect­ing actu­al data by ask­ing you for some ini­tial facil­i­ty details. Con­tact us at 800–260-8665 or at Info@smartfacilitysoftware.com. We’re hap­py to get the unique answers for your spe­cif­ic facil­i­ty.