insights
Ready to Freshen Up Your EVS Performance Improvement Plan?
Tips for setting a course you can be excited about in the new year
Updating your Environmental Services Performance Improvement Plan? It’s the right thing to do – to maintain high levels of cleanliness, patient safety, and efficiency. And, it’s the right time to do it. Plus, it’s inevitable, hospital leadership will likely request a Performance Improvement Plan early in this new year.
Here are some best practices to consider when developing your EVS process improvements.
Tip 1. Choosing Goals: Be Focused and Specific
EVS touches every part of the hospital, from the lobby to the OR and ER, comprising one of the largest head counts of hospital staff. And, there’s no shortage of activity for EVS managers and technicians — from setting cleaning protocols to attending training and education, to performing the front-line cleaning that fights infections and helps improve patient outcomes.
Because you manage these many EVS responsibilities on a daily basis, you have likely identified several areas where you would like to see improvement. And, you might be asking yourself, “Where do I begin?”
The first part of this answer is simple: Be Focused and Specific
It’s clear that you can’t target every EVS responsibility for improvement at the same time. In our experience, it’s best practice to select THREE goals and focus on them all year long. And be specific in your goal definition, as tempting as it might be to set broad goals in the face of broad challenges.
For example:
- A non-specific goal: Reduce costs.
- A specific goal: Decrease bio-waste disposal costs by reducing improper use of bio-waste containers.
The particular performance improvement plan you chart will depend on your unique circumstances, of course. Take a look at:
- What you did last year in terms of performance improvement
- Which new challenges have come up that require new practices
Tip 2. Make Goals, and Actions Toward Those Goals, Measurable
For each performance improvement goal you specify, you will undoubtedly define the measurable outcomes. Importantly, you should also design a process with measurable, specific action steps that go toward those outcomes. Designing a plan with specific action steps is relatively easy. But, collecting, storing, and reporting action performance data can be difficult and time consuming without the proper tools (see Tip 3).
Measurability
Tangible: You might wish to reduce the quarterly cost for bio-waste disposal, or achieve cost reductions for linens. Both of these example goals involve tangible, measurable outcomes that are quantifiable in pounds and cost per pound. And your actions toward those goals might be specific, such as properly using bio-waste containers, or standardizing bed make up per department.
Less Tangible: A goal such as “save technician time between room cleans” has a less tangible outcome, however, than counting pounds and dollars at the end of a quarter. Yet, your actions steps that affect this example outcome can include something more immediately observable. Reorganizing and standardizing the setup of cleaning carts, for example, can be documented in a quantifiable way — perhaps as a number of yes or no observations. Goals with less tangible outcomes are still worthy of your performance improvement efforts. The point is to design action steps that are measurable in some fashion, while also finding a way to measure and document the change in your outcome.
Baseline: Know where you’re starting to determine where you’re going
Once you define the outcomes and design the process actions to reach your goals, record a baseline measurement. Meaning: Based on the outcome and action steps you design, what is the current measurement of that level, cost, or volume? That answer is your baseline, from which your performance will move up or down.
Data collection and reporting within — and without — your departmental control
Many of your goals will allow defined actions and protocols that let you collect the measurement entirely within the boundaries of your department. On the other hand, some of your department’s performance may be measured by third parties. For example, you likely have an ever-present goal of improving HCAHPS scores. You may be tasked with improving the response to a specific HCAHPS question, such as “During this hospital stay, how often were your room and bathroom kept clean?”
While the final improvement score is gathered outside of your department’s control, your process toward this target can be designed to measure what you can control. For example, you know that patients tend to feel their room did not get cleaned in the event that the vital cleaning steps took place while a patient was out of a room. So, you can develop a process where the technician leaves a note or table tent in the patient’s absence, or you may even have them return to the room to greet the patient at a later time. Supervisors can then survey patients to track their perception of cleanliness and whether they believed their room was cleaned that day. Why? Because all HCAHPS questions are a matter of perception. There are several ways to improve perception, while sincerely providing the essential services that improve the patient’s stay.
As long as we’re talking about perception, you may be familiar with the phrase “first impressions are lasting impressions.” We’re stating the obvious here, but it’s worth repeating. That is, simpler tasks, such as the tidiness of the front entrance trash receptacles and cleaning windows or doors should not be overlooked when designing your action steps.
Whether final improvement measurements are tangible, less tangible, or within or outside your departmental control, your process design can include defined and measurable actions that can be tracked on a regular basis. See Tip 3, below, for suggestions on collecting, storing and reporting data.
3. Measure at Regular Intervals
As mentioned above, performance improvement measurement begins with baselines. Once baselines measurements are recorded and your
process includes defined actions, those actions should be measured and recorded at regular intervals. While intervals will vary depending on the type of action, an established interval should be repeated as consistently as possible.
Your measurement (data collection) can involve several kinds of surveys
You may do an objective and factual ATP or Black Light test, which records the observable outcomes of cleaning practices. Or, you may personally survey your internal customers about their perception of your targeted areas. Your data may come from tasks checked off by EVS staff during their work day. You may physically tour the facility during an inspection, recording the condition of the floors, the presence of tent cards on patient trays, etc. Finally, as we also mentioned above, your improvement score may come from a source outside of your department, such as HCAHPS scores.
Your department should tally and report the results, at least quarterly. Reporting to internal EVS staff may occur more frequently, even daily or per shift for certain actions. A consistent measurement pace will allow you to track progress and adjust the improvement plan as needed.
Yes, there is a mobile survey and inspection app
Recording the multiple sets of data points could be time consuming and overwhelming. However, there is software and app from Smart Facility Software designed specifically for Environmental Services Departments. The purpose of the software is to support the EVS mission of clean and safe hospital environments, a vital part of improving patients’ stays and outcomes.
In addition to maximizing staffing efficiency, managing work assignments, and enabling real-time EVS team communications, the software includes mobile QA inspections and surveys. The software is designed to record the results of surveys and manage the data for easy retrieval and reporting. With the software’s advanced survey capabilities, you can build any survey, any time, and conduct it in the field or online.
Conduct inspections and surveys on mobile devices. The data uploads from across the entire hospital for instant reporting. Say goodbye to handwritten paper forms and data re-entry after data collection. Choose from built-in templates, or customize surveys in limitless ways.
Equally important is the ability to access the data, share it, and report on it indefinitely in dashboards, custom reports and charts.
Conclusion: It’s that time of year
Take some time now to:
- Select focused and specific goals for the new year
- Make goals, and actions toward those goals, measurable
- Plan to measure at regular intervals
Start the year with a fresh performance improvement plan that you can get excited about. Set your department on the best course to meet the mission of a clean and safe hospital.
THOUGHT STARTERS: There’s a brief list of performance improvement goals at the bottom of this article.
Want to find out more about how Smart Facility Software can support your team? Call 800–260‑8665 or click here to contact us and/or schedule a demo today!
To get your thoughts moving: Potential Performance Improvement Goals
- Implement a QA inspection program
- Improve QA inspection scores
- Reduce turnover
- Save time at set up: Organize storage rooms — so accessing them becomes more efficient and saves set up time.
- Save time throughout the day: Standardize cart set up — so no matter what floor or what technician is assigned, they have a familiar cart set up and don’t have to alter their flow.
- Reduce linen costs by beveloping a standard bed makeup (department specific).
- Reduce biowaste costs
- Improve HCAHPS scores by addressing areas most likely to affect perceptions:
- Was the room and restroom kept clean?
- How does the parking lot look?
- Entrance covered in cigarette butts?
- Glass on the doors clean?
- Public restrooms cleaned?