ASHE Chapter Speaker Requests

With more than 12,500 members, ASHE is the largest association devoted to professionals who design, build, maintain and operate hospitals and other health care facilities. ASHE members include health care facility managers, engineers, architects, designers, constructors and others. Learn about the American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE) and all of the latest resources, products and services available to the field.

The ASHE advocacy team routinely monitors the many codes and standards that regulate health care facilities to address conflicts where they may occur and provide a strong, clear voice when advocating for rules that assure efficient operation of health care facilities. ASHE represents our field to the regulatory and legislative bodies that set the rules. Learn about the latest initiatives and share your feedback in this session.

ASHE prioritizes sustainability as key to operational excellence. The Energy to Care program provides a one-stop shop of tools and resources that address the unique attributes of health care facilities and encourages facilities to redirect energy savings toward improved patient care. Learn more about ASHE’s focus on sustainability in health care, common practices for helping facilities achieve their goals, and the tools and resources available through ASHE’s comprehensive programs.

Learning Objectives

• Define sustainability and discuss how health care facilities can become more sustainable.
• Explore the Energy to Care program and the tools and resources available.
• Name and describe the core Energy to Care product offerings.
• Implement common practices for reaching sustainability goals.

The purpose of the Energy to Care Dashboard Orientation Workshop is to engage health care staff and other key stakeholders in the ASHE Energy to Care Program through the dashboard’s tools and features. Participants will review the various service lines offered through the Energy to Care program and become familiar with the dashboard’s energy management capabilities. Additionally, participants will learn how to set up new user and building accounts, navigate through the widgets and menu options, and generate reporting and personalized views for analysis purposes.

Learning Objectives:

• Name and describe the core Energy to Care product offerings.
• Access and sign into the Energy to Care Dashboard.
• Complete the setup process for new users, buildings and organizations.
• Navigate the dashboard’s home screen views and drop-down menu options.
• Analyze and interpret utility performance data using the dashboard views, tools and reports.

The 2012 edition of NFPA 101®, Life Safety Code® is currently adopted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as part of its Conditions of

Participation (COPs). This session will walk through several different health care occupancies and discuss the differences between the COPs and some of the adopted codes. The presenters will also lead a discussion on the next steps for future NFPA 101 adoption and participation opportunities for attendees.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the new CMS requirements for several different provider types.
• Explain the different applications of the COPs.
• Discuss the differences between the COPs and local regulations that may affect construction projects or operations.
• Plan a compliance strategy for existing hospitals.

This presentation will discuss the road that has led to the development of a one-of-a-kind guideline. The purpose of Guideline 43 is to provide baseline recommendations for the operation of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that provide environmental control in health care facilities for the safety and comfort of health care facility occupants. The presentation will cover the genesis of the guideline, how the recommendations were developed and the current status of the guideline.

Learning Objectives – at the conclusion of the discussion attendees will:

• Understand the importance of an operational guideline
• Be able to pontificate the justification for the guideline
• Be able to describe the recommendations of the operational guideline
• Be able to apply the guideline to their systems

Through the ASHE advocacy team’s unified codes efforts, the International Building Code and the 2012 edition of the NFPA 101®, Life Safety Code® are now more aligned than ever before. Presenters will go over the important changes in the Life Safety Code, as well as some elements in NFPA 99, Health Care Facilities Code. In addition, this session will cover the anticipated adoption timeframe and process, and provide an overview of the code development process including how you can get involved.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the changes to the codes that will affect health care facilities.
• Illustrate the code adoption process.
• Get involved in the code development process.
• Identify the different enforcement entities and authorities.

NFPA 99, Health Care Facilities Code addresses a wide range of topics unique to health care facilities. The 2012 edition of the code presented a major change from an occupancy-based approach to a risk based-approach. The 2015 edition continues to use this approach and includes several technical changes from the 2012 edition. This session will review the fundamental change from occupancy- to risk-based approach and detail all of the major technical changes made between the 2012 and 2015 editions.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the fundamental shift from an occupancy-based approach to a risk-based approach.
• Identify changes that have occurred between the 2012 and 2015 editions of NFPA 99.
• Discuss the impacts that these changes may have on projects.
• Recognize the technical committee’s reasoning behind the changes to the code.

The regulatory environment in hospitals is a tangled web of codes and standards enforced by multiple authorities having jurisdiction (AHJs). Future codes and standards must be streamlined and work together without conflict to ensure good stewardship of hospital resources. Cruise the ASHE Advocacy Highway to learn about ASHE codes and standards initiatives, major changes coming down the pike and how you can get involved. The code development process, federal reimbursement systems, and pending changes in regulations will be addressed.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss the code development process.
• Identify the unique challenges of health care regulations
• Describe the federal reimbursement system and its applications.

Many states adopt the Guidelines for the Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities as the standard for health care facility design. This session will provide an overview of the major changes in the 2022 edition of the Guidelines, as well as the intent and effects of those changes. The session will also discuss future revision opportunities for the Guidelines.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key changes in the Guidelines 2022 edition that could affect your design and construction projects.
• Discuss the intent of the changes for health care facilities.
• Design, regulate and comply with the Guidelines more efficiently.
• Discuss opportunities for future revisions and the process for the Guidelines revision process.

In this session, ASHE’s codes and standards experts will discuss emerging codes and standards issues facing health care facilities and offer answers to your specific questions. Attendees are invited to ask questions about any of the codes and standards related to health care facilities, including NFPA 99, Health Care Facilities Code and NFPA 101®, Life Safety Code®.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify issues commonly faced by health care facilities.
• Discuss changes needed in regulations and how to support efforts to enact those changes.
• Explore in detail NFPA 99 and NFPA 101.
• Explain your unique and important role as a professional in health care.

Is your health care facility prepared for your next physical environment compliance survey? Are you currently in your survey window? Are you looking for help being in continuous compliance? Attendees will gain insight into the methodology used by survey teams and will deepen their understanding of rules, regulations and most-likely citations.

Learning Objectives:

• Prepare for your next survey.
• Identify the areas you may need to focus on prior to your next survey.
• Create a plan to ensure continuous compliance with physical environment standards.
• Discover the hot survey issues for the coming year.

Project managers, contractors and facilities managers alike know how difficult it is to align the whole team around safe infection control practices during construction, renovation and maintenance (CRM) activities. After 25 years, ASHE recently released an ICRA 2.0 to make it easier for teams to assess projects. Furthermore, ASHE has developed training to help teams build better communication around the risks and controls in these situations.

Learning Objectives:

• Assess infection control risks and controls during CRM activities using the ICRA 2.0 tool.
• Practice the five-step ICRA 2.0 process.
• Identify who should be on your ICRA 2.0 team for forthcoming CRM projects.
• Strategize how to implement ICRA 2.0 at your site.

The purpose of  Understanding Benchmarking For Facility Managers Workshop is to introduce health facility management staff to the concept of effective benchmarking, to educate participants in how to conceptualize a benchmarking program and how to select and track KPIs based on solid scientific principles. Participants will then engage with the instructor as a team to tackle the timely and important metric and benchmarking issues they currently face, using a consensus building workshop format (where competing ideas and considerations are expressed and compared against measurement science to reach a best-case solution for the group). At workshop end, participants will have a better understanding of how to create or adapt their own current benchmarking process, will have had the opportunity to provide feedback on key decisions in the build of ASHE’s Health Care Facility Tailored Benchmarking (HFTB) program, will be prepared to participate in ASHE’s HFTB program after launch, and will possess the basic knowledge to explore potential upgrades to their own organization’s benchmarking activities.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe previous benchmarking efforts in health care facility management benchmarking, and understand the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches
  • Defining the unit of analysis
  • Determining whether a metric is a KPI (hint: not all metrics are KPIs)
  • Understanding what a covariate is and how it impacts benchmarking comparisons
• Conceptualize/revise current benchmarking activities to allow for effective data capture
• Understand how the actual measurement of different KPIs and covariates may systematically impact benchmarking activities
• As a group, problem solve to control for “messiness” in measurement of activities, which will increase the validity of benchmarking for the facilities management profession.

The ASHE member tools task force (MTTF) was created to evaluate the compliance issues most important to members and create online tools accessible on the ASHE website and discussed in a series of articles in Health Facilities Management (HFM) magazine. This session will provide an overview of ASHE’s content strategy and highlight many of those tools and resources and show you where you can explore additional tools and resources.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn about the ASHE content strategy
• Explore tools that help hospitals comply with life safety and environment of care requirements
• Discuss the hot topics in healthcare physical environment
• Learn how to access MTTF’s growing roster of articles, spreadsheets, tools and other resources