In an increasingly digital age, it’s tempting to look for a software that can do everything for your facility: from billing to ADT to environmental services. But a one-size-fits-all approach has limits when it comes to the complex world of Hospital Administration.

For instance, one large hos­pi­tal department––Environmental Services––is an extreme­ly spe­cial­ized field. Clean­ing pro­to­cols are very reg­i­ment­ed and crit­i­cal, as they are based on sci­ence that con­tin­ues to evolve as our under­stand­ing of infec­tion and dis­eases evolve. Beyond the clean­ing itself, admin­is­tra­tive aspects like cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, ongo­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing, and reg­u­la­to­ry report­ing, are all cru­cial and com­plex aspects of the work. Sev­er­al trade asso­ci­a­tions, such as AHE, exist in order to sup­port pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment in this dis­ci­pline.

Our engi­neers and con­sul­tants are inti­mate­ly famil­iar with these com­plex­i­ties, because they come from an Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices (EVS) back­ground. That’s why we built ES Opti­miz­er and our oth­er soft­ware pro­grams  specif­i­cal­ly for envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices teams. Because you shouldn’t have to retro­fit your soft­ware to fit your needs; it should be built around those needs.

Here’s why spe­cial­ized soft­ware mat­ters for spe­cial­ized dis­ci­plines like EVS:


 

Built for the entire workflow, not just task management

The true effec­tive­ness of any man­age­ment soft­ware doesn’t just lie in the mod­ules like task man­age­ment, sur­veys, and sched­ul­ing. It lies in how these mod­ules work togeth­er to sup­port your entire work­flow. How do you orga­nize, assign, log and report on tasks for every employ­ee in a large depart­ment? What do you do with Qual­i­ty Inspec­tion Sur­vey Results once you have them? The under­ly­ing data­base and how each mod­ule draws from and con­tributes to it deter­mines whether the soft­ware cre­ates effi­cien­cies or just cre­ates extra work.

Mod­ules like these need a foun­da­tion. Just like you wouldn’t start build­ing a house by choos­ing the fur­ni­ture, you wouldn’t start build­ing your EVS work plan by ran­dom­ly assign­ing tasks. For your EVS depart­ment to run smooth­ly, your tools need to be plugged into the greater work­flow. Your work assign­ments need to be based on what your unique facil­i­ty requires, and QA sur­veys need to be based on the work assign­ments that have been com­plet­ed. Oth­er­wise, they just gen­er­ate task lists and sur­vey results that no one knows what to do with.

That’s why it’s so impor­tant that the soft­ware you use has an inti­mate under­stand­ing of the spe­cif­ic needs of your depart­ment. While a stan­dard task man­age­ment appli­ca­tion might allow you to assign dis­crete tasks to peo­ple, it doesn’t offer a way of deter­min­ing all the tasks that need to be done with­in a depart­ment. Nor does it pull fin­ished task data into indus­try-required reports: for exam­ple, an OR Ter­mi­nal Clean­ing Log, or a Joint Com­mis­sion cubi­cle cur­tain review.

To cite just one exam­ple: in ES Opti­miz­er, the data­base of facil­i­ty spaces is designed with an under­stand­ing of what, how and when EVS cleans each space. Each mod­ule feeds off of this accu­rate EVS data to pro­duce action­able items and nec­es­sary reports.


Built and supported by people who have been in your shoes

Gen­er­al­ized soft­ware that can “do it all” tends to be designed by peo­ple more inter­est­ed in soft­ware than your depart­ment. A soft­ware that is high­ly spe­cial­ized around a spe­cif­ic dis­ci­pline often tends to be cre­at­ed by peo­ple who have come from that dis­ci­pline. Smart Facil­i­ty Soft­ware, for exam­ple, is staffed by for­mer envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices direc­tors, man­agers and super­vi­sors: Our soft­ware han­dles the EVS work­flow like a pro, because it is designed and stew­ard­ed by EVS pro­fes­sion­als.

Smart Facil­i­ty Soft­ware con­sul­tants know exact­ly the chal­lenges you’re fac­ing as an EVS Direc­tor, because they’ve faced those same chal­lenges. And they are always there to help you fig­ure out how to address them: whether that means updat­ing your work assign­ments for new COVID clean­ing pro­to­cols, or fig­ur­ing out how to use your data to address your spe­cif­ic admin­is­tra­tive needs.

When we take on a new facil­i­ty as a client, we don’t use bench­marks or blue­prints to build out the data­base. Our EVS con­sul­tants lit­er­al­ly walk the floors of each hos­pi­tal facil­i­ty to deter­mine your facility’s scope and spe­cif­ic needs and build your data­base of rooms and clean­ing require­ments. This first­hand knowl­edge of your facil­i­ty makes it pos­si­ble to run staffing analy­ses and build work assign­ments that actu­al­ly meet the needs of your unique facil­i­ty and bud­get.

Because those tasks aren’t just based on any hos­pi­tal facil­i­ty: it’s based on your spe­cif­ic hos­pi­tal facil­i­ty, and its spe­cif­ic clean­ing pro­to­cols.


Built to focus on one department’s needs, without sacrificing the ability to work with other departments

Hav­ing a soft­ware that focus­es on one spe­cial­ty, and one spe­cial­ty only, often means that soft­ware is bet­ter suit­ed to address the unique needs of your depart­ment. But oth­er depart­ments have soft­ware that are equal­ly crit­i­cal to their oper­a­tions. That means it’s impor­tant to look for a spe­cial­ized soft­ware that can also inte­grate with oth­er depart­men­tal appli­ca­tions: because every­thing works bet­ter when it works togeth­er.

ADT soft­ware sys­tems, for instance, might be able to do things like sur­vey patient rooms and wait­ing areas for clean­li­ness. But they over­look essen­tial func­tions of  EVS management—like pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cians with detailed dai­ly task sheets (work assign­ments) —because those are out­side its scope.

At SFS, we know where our spe­cial­ty starts and stops, and where anoth­er soft­ware’s begins. That’s why we are built to be inter­op­er­a­ble and to exchange infor­ma­tion with oth­er applications—because we know it’s unre­al­is­tic to rely on one app to ful­fill an entire hospital’s needs.

The good news is, you don’t have to choose one or the oth­er: more and more, soft­ware com­pa­nies are mov­ing toward inter­op­er­abil­i­ty, to ensure that depart­ments work togeth­er with­out rely­ing on one soft­ware for every depart­ment. Our ES Opti­miz­er soft­ware, for exam­ple, is built accord­ing to HL7 stan­dards to share infor­ma­tion safe­ly and secure­ly between mul­ti­ple apps. That means you can inte­grate our EVS soft­ware with your ADT system–without the need to enter data in two places.

Instead of rely­ing on one app to ful­fill every department’s needs, you should be able to depend on the spe­cial­iza­tion of your soft­ware with­out sac­ri­fic­ing the abil­i­ty to work eas­i­ly with oth­er depart­ments. 


With the com­plex­i­ty that comes with envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices work, want­i­ng to take on a one-size-fits-all approach is tempt­ing, but it isn’t quite as sim­ple as it sounds. Giv­en the extreme­ly spe­cial­ized nature of EVS, sup­port­ing your depart­ment with a soft­ware that was built accord­ing to your spe­cif­ic needs isn’t a nice-to-have: it’s a must-have.

If you’d like to learn more about how our specialized EVS software can work for your EVS department, schedule a demo with us today, or email info@smartfacilitysoftware.com.