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Healthcare and hospital facility management is always needed in order to maintain a clean and healthy medical facility’s environment.  It is vital for medical facilities to ensure service requests are responded to rapidly and competently and that preventive maintenance schedules are implemented strictly in order to properly preserve facility operations without disturbance.

Using new web-based healthcare facility management applications can help your medical facility:

• Extend your organization’s assets’ lives
• Automatically track facility maintenance costs
• Prevent crucial equipment failure
• Improve your organization’s productivity
• Reduce costly downtime
• Minimize investments in inventory
• Lower the total cost of your facility’s maintenance

Using these software applications, hospitals can easily set up maintenance procedures and preventive maintenance for healthcare and hospital facilities and relevant equipment in the following areas:

• Generators
• Suction Machines
• Sterilizing Equipment
• Wheel Chairs
• Electric Beds
• Arthroscopic Equipment
• X-ray Machines
• Heart Monitor
• Pumps
• Computers
• Compressors
• Coolers
• Air Purifiers
• Vehicles
• Respirator

Hospital and Healthcare Facility

Maintenance and facility management is imperative across hospitals and healthcare facilities to meet patient needs and regulatory standards.

Maintenance programs can help manage preventive maintenance by allowing for:

• Reduced downtime on critical assets
• Extended asset life across the facility
• Maintained maintenance budgets and cost minimization
• Minimized inventory
• Improved team efficiencies

Modern, energy-saving technology was a welcome sight for technicians who had been working with outdated, underperforming equipment in the old hospital. By using these powerful tools, facility managers can focus on tasks like fine-tuning HVAC equipment and performing the necessary preventive maintenance.

Want to know more? Call MaintenX today!

Maintenance problem-solving is mainly concerned with several areas:

• Maintaining critical systems
• Fixing the problem quickly
• Determining what is causing the breakdown to happen so frequently

We’ll discuss common maintenance problems and how you can prevent or minimize them.

Identification is Key

When you don’t understand a maintenance issue, you want to understand it. Facility maintenance is no different. You must first identify everything in your company or organization’s facility or have someone in your department who does. When a maintenance problem occurs, you’ll need to ascertain where and when the problem happened. More significantly, you also need to identify why you do things a certain way while keeping an eye out for new and better approaches at problem-solving.

In addition to recognizing the individual problems, you also have to be aware that problem-solving can be divided into different levels:

• Reaction or acting on the problem when it occurs
• Learning to live with the problem by correcting the system
• Keeping a proactive approach involving changing the conditions that led to the particular problem in the first place

These levels describe approaches that can be used on most facility maintenance problems.

Preventing Maintenance Problems

Your facility maintenance prevention action plan must be comprehensive and cover all areas, such as:

• Personnel
• Maintenance practices
• Hardware
• Systems

These categories are most valuable when solving cause and effect problems.

Want to know more about how you can prevent maintenance emergencies? Call MaintenX today!

Loss of an organization’s profits is the biggest reason that facilities must maintain proper conditions at all times. It is the facility manager’s responsibility to know which areas of facilities are vital for maintaining comfortable conditions at all times.

Developing an HVAC Crisis Management Strategy

The first step in the design of an emergency cooling system is to identify those areas that must be kept properly air conditioned in the event of a main power or cooling failure.

Once facility managers have determined the crucial areas of the facility, the next job is to estimate the cooling capacity necessary to maintain conditions.

Once the facility manager is satisfied with the existing HVAC system, the next step is to confirm the emergency operating conditions of these vital areas.

Facility managers should also keep in mind that some facility equipment can function at higher temperatures without damaging the equipment.

The heat produced by occupants during an emergency situation is typically insignificant.

Lastly, heat transferred through exterior walls and roofs of your facility can oftentimes be negligible in new buildings. Older buildings with little or no insulation require facility managers to determine the expected amount of heat transfer during an outage.

It is essential for property managers to make sure that the load requirement for the vital areas of their facilities do not also come with a potential risk of danger to your facility’s occupants.

While most commercial and industrial facilities along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts have been built to bear the effects of hurricane-force winds, facility managers can take additional steps to lessen the potential damage that can occur during major storms.

Understand Your Facility’s Risks

The key trademarks of a hurricane are:

• High wind speeds
• Storm surges
• Torrential rains
• Tornadoes

Any one of these can put your organization’s facility at risk during a storm.

Know Your Disaster Response Action Plan

While most major commercial and industrial organizations have fixed disaster response plans already in place, conducting an audit of your facility’s emergency strategy is never a bad idea. Before a storm hits, make sure that you thoroughly review your organization’s property insurance policy to ensure the business is sufficiently covered against storm damage.

As a Storm is Coming

As soon as a hurricane warning is issued, facility managers should check the facility’s interior and exterior surroundings and then take the correct safety measures. Some of these can include:

• Bringing in exterior displays and removing any outdoor signs or other items that could fly away in high winds and board up glass doors and windows.
• Place sandbags in appropriate areas to help stop floodwaters from entering the facility.
• Make sure all storm drains near the property are clear of debris to help keep the water away from the facility.
• Make arrangements for after the storm has passed for your staff, and emergency power connections if needed.

Have more questions about hurricane preparedness? Call MaintenX today!

Facilities that may have to deal with hurricanes should take steps to ensure that employees are prepared and that the building can withstand the weather. Here are some tips to help you prepare.

Planning is Key

The purpose of an emergency response plan is to protect your most important assets: your facility’s occupants. A thorough plan should include:

• An evacuation plan and route 
• Provisions for data backup, as well as alternate communications and power
• A list of vendors and contractors to provide disaster recovery services

Next, identify leaders with the authority and skills to direct others during an emergency. These emergency leaders must be high-performing workers who are assertive and cross-trained among various organization divisions. For the duration of a hurricane, they should be able to execute evacuation plans and provide occupants with important instructions.

Safety Equipment

Access to all necessary safety equipment is also critical. Ask yourself these questions:

• Can employees easily locate and access emergency equipment in the dark?
• Does the supply include face shields, respirators, safety glasses, hard hats, earplugs, and personal protective equipment for each employee?
• Is the emergency equipment supply regularly audited to ensure personal protective equipment will be available when needed?

It’s also imperative that you appoint a dedicated response team who understands all your facility’s systems. In case of a fire, they should also know how ammonia or refrigeration systems are secured to prevent possible release.

Want to know more about hurricane preparedness? Call MaintenX today!

As the summer approaches, so do the risks of heat and dehydration. Preparing your facility is vital to the health and protection of your occupants and valuable assets. Follow these tips to stay cool in the summer heat this year.

Get quarterly system checkups.

Routine facility inspections of your HVAC system can ensure that it is set to properly cool your facility while controlling your energy expenses. HVAC system inspections can also diminish the need for future maintenance by helping identify and address any looming system problems before they happen.

Calibrate indoor and outdoor building sensors.

Make sure to check that your facility’s control systems are responding correctly and that the proper temperature is displayed on each unit.

Make sure you have the right HVAC unit.

Is your facility’s HVAC unit the correct size for the layout of your facility? The service life of most HVAC equipment is typically around 18 years. If your equipment is getting close to that lifespan, it might be time to replace it.

Install an Energy Management System.

An energy management system can create huge time, energy, and cost savings for commercial buildings. It acts as an automated facility manager, allowing you to make temperature adjustments from anywhere.

Being proactive about your system’s needs can optimize efficiency as well as control unnecessary energy consumption.

Interested in learning more about protecting your facility from the summer heat? Call MaintenX today!

Facilities are sometimes surprised to find their sewer bill to cost as much as, or even more than, their water bill. How can this be?

Sewer charges can be higher than water costs for many reasons. One major reason can often be the difference between the systems for water distribution and waste water collection. For example, waste water flows using gravity, as it isn’t pumped. In hilly or mountainous terrain, sewer lines need to be built deep below the ground. Trench digging is the largest part of the cost of building a working pipeline. The deeper the pipe goes under the ground, the higher the cost of construction will be.

Water Distribution

The sizes of drinking water distribution and waste water collection systems can also change the costs associated with these water and sewage systems.

Another factor is the difference in the treatment methods used for drinking water and waste water.

Complexities in Water Treatment

The complexity of waste water treatment has increased radically over the years. In the past, waste water treatment involved filtering out large objects, then discharging the rest into nearby water. The result was a lot of pollution. Since then, treatment has evolved to include sophisticated biological systems that remove organic materials by using complicated filters and state-of-the-art disinfection methods. In fact, the water released by the treatment facility is oftentimes cleaner than the receiving stream. The advanced systems are expensive to build and maintain, thus increasing costs, but they’re certainly more efficient and environmentally friendly.

Want to know more? Contact MaintenX today!

Most facility managers are always looking for ways to cut costs and reduce their facility’s energy use.

One very effective product for this is an occupancy sensor, a device that detects if a space is occupied and turns the lights (and in some cases even a HVAC system) on or off automatically.

How Occupancy Sensors Can Save You Money

Occupancy sensors are used extensively in today’s facilities, and are a great way to reduce your facility’s energy consumption and therefore costs.  Occupancy sensors are also ideal for rooms where lights are frequently left on.

The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Organization recommends occupancy sensors as effective tools. In many states, when building or renovating a commercial facility, contractors must follow specific state and federal standards and codes. These new codes often require a stricter level of energy efficiency.

If you are interested in installing occupancy sensors throughout your commercial location or in your home, contact MaintenX today!

Good work merits a hearty pat on the back. Really good work often warrants a prize, preferably given in front of a large audience. No matter what prize you settle on, incentives and recognition are the best ways to motivate your facility’s occupants to achieve even greater energy savings for your facility and business or organization.

By providing incentives and recognition to your facility’s occupants, you will help sustain the push and general support for your program amongst your workforce.

Everyone likes free food!

Consider starting your incentive program with something like a pizza party, an ice cream social, a company-wide breakfast event, or any other food rewards you can think of. This will help you hit your program’s goals and make overall progress.

Cash and other prizes

Depending on the savings levels you’re looking for, you may also want to consider awarding cash or prizes to your facility’s occupants for great energy-saving ideas or individual energy-saving champs.

Some ENERGY STAR partners find success in their programs by tying energy savings to pay-for-performance strategies, cash bonuses, and other employee rewards.

Why not make it official?

Complement your facility’s ENERGY STAR recognition opportunities with internal support by recognizing the individuals or teams who made a difference. This recognition will mean more if it’s given formally, like at an awards ceremony or during an important meeting, or if it comes from your organization’s top management.

Want to know more? Call MaintenX today!

Smart building systems can save your facility a lot of money. Here are a few examples of the technology that’s revolutionizing the facility management industry.

Building Automation Systems

A building automation system (BAS) can be installed in almost any building, including:

• Retail stores
• Restaurants
• Commercial real estate
• Industrial buildings
• Warehouses

Automated building management is facilitated by predictive technologies that provide facility managers with remote scheduling, monitoring, and control of building equipment and lighting.

How Does It Work?

Building automation systems work much better than the typical updates like new paint, new carpet and other facility assets. Today’s facility occupants demand more, and facility managers know that building automation is the wave of the future.

With advanced systems like cloud computing, the BAS combines predictive technologies and customized preferences to proactively manage the various dynamics of your building. Facility managers now have their control abilities heightened, and occupants of each part of a building have greater insight into and control over their spaces.

Machine Learning

Machine learning uses predictive analytics to form a strategy, empowering the BAS to automatically evaluate the data model of your building, discover new insights, and adjust its approach without requiring programming if:

• Someone decides a zone is too hot or cold
• If the weather outside changes from sunny to cloudy
• Any other parameter you set

Want to know more? Call MaintenX today!