New! ASHE Webinar Series

Pressurized Spaces Program using ASHRAE 170

To support infection control and clinical care teams and satisfy accreditation compliance requirements, facilities staff in a hospital operates and maintains a variety of critical and pressurized spaces.

Unfortunately, the built environment may be having a negative impact on patient outcomes due to improper pressure relationships and infrequent inspection, testing, and maintenance activities.

Speaker: Dennis Ford

Learning Objectives:

• Describe how Lean philosophy can work in service environments.
• Identify Lean tools that are most effective in service processes.
• Determine which processes benefit from Value Stream Mapping.
• Apply the Value Stream Mapping event process.

Lean Mean Facilities Machine

Virtually everyone, in every industry, is being asked to "do more with less." Facilities Support is no different. While more with less may be possible in the short run, it is an unsustainable long-term solution. Employees burn out, quality suffers, and delays are inevitable. So, what else can you do? The Medical University of South Carolina Facilities team has begun a Lean initiative. Our goal is to create a culture of continuous improvement and empower all employees to find opportunities for cost savings, time reallocations, and improved customer service. Lean thinking challenges us to prioritize what customers’ value and understand the flow of products and services across departments and technologies. We have begun our journey by focusing on the work order process – from customer request through billing. By using the Lean Value Stream Mapping tool, we have defined ten key improvement projects and set data driven goals to dramatically improve our process.

Speakers: Jennifer Hoel, Medical University of South Carolina; Andrew Gelasco, Medical University of South Carolina; Richard Terhune, Medical University of South Carolina

Learning Objectives:

• Describe how Lean philosophy can work in service environments.
• Identify Lean tools that are most effective in service processes.
• Determine which processes benefit from Value Stream Mapping.
• Apply the Value Stream Mapping event process.

Beyond the Basics: Acing Your Joint Commission Survey

Simply complying with the Joint Commission Environment of Care standard is the bare minimum for how Facility Managers should care for their hospitals. Go beyond simply complying and ace your survey by excelling in four complex areas. Prepare for the documentation section of your survey, utilize the standards to create a full emergency power program and show compliance with the 96-hour rule, view the current methods for a collaborative, interdisciplinary pressure, temperature, and humidity monitoring process, and create a comprehensive water management program to comply with ASHRAE 188. Creating comprehensive programs within the Environment of Care can show that a facility is managing their equipment well and highlights the hard work that the facilities teams do every day.

Speakers: Taylor Vaughn, Children's Medical Center Dallas; Clayton Smith, Children’s Health; Carol McCormick, CHI Health

Learning Objectives:

• Describe how to successfully prepare for and navigate the documentation review portion of a survey.
• Assess your current emergency power program and identify gaps and areas of improvement areas of improvement.
• Explain the correct procedures for monitoring room pressurization, temperature, and humidity in required areas.
• Create a comprehensive water management program to combat waterborne pathogens.

Preparing for Continuous Electrical Disruption on Hospital Operations

Coordinating major electrical utility disruptions and creating mitigation strategies for a busy hospital requires careful organization and involvement of all stakeholders. Executing over 30 electrical shutdowns requires structure and routine during planning to ensure that all risks and critical aspects are identified, mitigated and communicated with all stakeholders. Virginia Mason’s Main Electrical Room (MER) upgrade project team leads (electrical contractor, hospital design/construction, and emergency management) will discuss the MER project, methodologies for shutdown risk assessment and planning, improvement strategies, real-time redline as-built document updates and collaboration, communications, tools and templates developed and lessons learned along the way.

Speakers: Renee Bryce, Virginia Mason Medical Center; Jennifer Lord, RPA, a JENSEN HUGHES Company; Melanie Petherick, Pan Pacific Alliance; Rick Burns, VECA Electric & Technologies

Learning Objectives:

• Demonstrate strategies for managing multiple planned utility shutdowns and minimizing risk potential with minimal impact on hospital operations.
• Illustrate planning templates including Event Action Plan, Communication Plan, Activity Timeline, Emergency Procedures, Temporary Measure Logs, etc. Identify areas for improvement and incorporate those into future planned shutdowns.
• Describe a document control strategy to ensure all organizational members have access to current utility information during multi-year, multi-phase construction activities.
• Share techniques for collaboration with stakeholders to consider upgrade or maintenance of utility equipment during shutdown.

Playing With the Elephants

Playing With the Elephants: What happens when we actively engage the elephants that need deconstruction. A framework to move past lip service and buzz words. The goal of this presentation is to engage "known" elephants through probing conversation to work through the regenerative framework needed to transform the elephants into solutions. Elephant Example: Why is it difficult to retain and motivate talent at the very top of the facilities management industry?

Speaker: Emi Camilla Yamada, Seattle Children's Hospital

Learning Objectives:

• Identify current programs and structures that are ripe for innovation
• How to create environments for Open and critical conversation
• Learn concrete actionable frameworks for immediate implementation
• Create intentional discomfort with open dialogue about as many elephants as the group feels comfortable deconstructing