education sessions

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Seth P Spangler

As retail consumer demands have shifted towards increased convenience and choice, the subsequent reduction in the need for brick and mortar retail outlets coincides with an increased need for outpatient healthcare services. The availability of these existing commercial properties presents an opportunity to healthcare organizations looking to expand service areas and shift many types of ambulatory care away from the expensive, critical-care hospital setting to outpatient facilities. Additionally, the current health crisis created by COVID-19 has created a unique need for offsite patient treatment facilities designed specifically to suit this type of care.
This presentation addresses engineering challenges associated with retrofitting retail buildings and spaces for an ambulatory occupancy and discusses best practices and lessons learned for successful project outcomes. Initial building assessment, equipment re-use, life-safety and code
requirements, and integration of critical and specialized systems will be explored. 

Jose Torres & Barney York 

Your team’s made significant HVAC system changes that successfully prepared your facilities to respond to the first wave of the Corona Virus. Yet, these changes were made after the winter heating season. This presentation will discuss how to proactively evaluate the changes you made now so there are no surprises when winter arrives. We will provide a checklist to identify the impacts of these adjustments on your air handling units, HEPA filtration, building humidification, coil freeze protection, and building pressurization, present a plan you can use to identify each issue, and share options to addressing them. The goal is think together about the about the challenges that winter will likely present and be prepared. 

Gary Milewski

Consider the number of daily activities that occur in your facilities that could create a life safety or environment of care deficiency. You have outside vendors, contractors, and others working above and below the ceiling. Team members moving equipment and beds throughout the corridors. You could end up with wall penetrations, open junction boxes, cables on and/or attached to sprinkler pipes and/or supports, doors not latching, doors knocked off their hinges, and other potential deficiencies.
Organizations conduct environmental rounding, mock surveys, and life safety assessments. These activities are designed to identify deficiencies and create additional work orders, taking time away from critical preventive maintenance activities. In some cases, the organization sends a tech with the surveyors, correcting identified deficiencies as they are found. How many organizations have extra staff that can regularly participate in these activities? Particularly with very little notice. When The Joint Commission changed their process from allowing a Plan for Improvement (PFI) to, see-it, cite-it, organizations are now faced with how to stay on top of the day to day activities that could generate a life safety or environment of care deficiency. Consider a life Safety Strike Team program, consisting of at least two seasoned technicians trained to identify and repair different life safety and environment of care deficiencies. 

Michael Ladd, John M Booth

Presentation will be a mock demonstration/round table planning process of an upcoming desired hospital project. How the planning and the development of the Pre-Construction Risk Assessment (PCRA) for an upcoming hospital project shows the impact/controls necessary for optimum patient safety. There will be a an on stage demonstration of the planning meeting. We will show visually the completed electronic version of the PCRA used and distributed electronically to Project Management, Infection Control, project owners etc. electronically by Atrium Healthcare Environment of Care/Safety Officers. The follow-up as project is underway and monitored by safety documenting in an Electronic Construction Safety Assessment. 

Ken Gregory

Our industry has been affected by a worldwide pandemic of the kind we have not had to deal with in recent modern times. Healthcare organizations have had to make quick significant changes to facilities in order to comply with the ever-changing CDC recommendations for addressing response to COVID-19. Now as we can more accurately reflect the needs of the facilities, many can begin to recover to normal operations. This involves more than just putting out facilities rooms and supplies back in place. There is also documentation and reporting that is needed to ensure compliance with code waivers utilized during the initial, and ongoing response that are critical to being compliant with CMS, Joint Commission, DNV, HFAP, etc. and insuring receipt of critical CMS funding. Join us for the informational presentation of the processes of recovery to insure all items are addressed come survey day. 

 CREATING SMART HOSPITALS: Giving patients control, improving patient & staff experiences and improving operating results using the Internet of Things (IoT) and other technologies. 

Daniel Flint & Jerry Folsom

Improving patient experiences and outcomes, driving better operating results and enhancing clinical and operational staff experiences make up the vision for the future of healthcare. To make that vision a reality, IoT technologies along with other new solutions and services can be used to help create smart hospitals with cost effective approaches.
We will discuss several approaches to enable visionary patient experiences, reduce clinical workloads, improve patient outcomes and streamline to reduce costs in renovated and new facilities. One example that we will discuss is how a hospital used a renovation project as an opportunity to provide patients with the ability to control their room environment. Working closely with the client and their nurse call vendor, a capability was provided to give patients control of the HVAC, lighting and shades with the nurse call pillow speaker. Early feedback from patients and the clinical team is that the new solution has been well received and providing improved patient experiences and reduced calls to clinical & facilities team members. In addition, the potential for reduced patient falls has been decreased due to patients not getting out of bed. All of this has been accomplished without adding major expenses to the project.
In addition to this example, our session will look at several other methods of using technology to improve the patient experience, reduce operating costs, improve staff experiences and reduce construction & renovation costs.