Cleaning House

Is your hospital clean? patients want to know, and so does the American Society for Healthcare Environmental Services.

In September, Chicago-based ASHES—made up of directors and managers of healthcare environmental services under the auspices of the American Hospital Association—launched the National Environmental Services Performance Indicators, an initiative that uses online surveys and Internet applications to collect data to determine the proper staffing levels needed for the cleanliness and safety of medical facilities.

ASHES Executive Director Patti Costello says the complexity of healthcare data complicates the decision-making processes related to environmental services. “Decisions are being driven strictly on a square-footage methodology, versus what exactly the department of environmental services is doing and how they are doing it,” she says. Facilities often are compared based on square footage and demographics, but what’s most important are the steps those facilities are taking to maintain standards of cleanliness. “While square footage is a piece of the equation, the cleaning standard and frequency of cleaning in each facility should be the measure,” Costello says.

NESPI documents a facility’s cleaning schedule and procedures via an in-depth questionnaire that is filled out by environmental service professionals. Executives can then use the results of the aggregate data for comparative analysis. The survey questions range from whether carpets are cleaned and floors are finished after stripping to whether window blinds are maintained and furniture is shampooed. “We’re really drilling down what you’re doing, how often it’s being done and how many people are involved,” explains Costello.

The initiative’s goal is to allow hospitals to compare their performance on a national level. In doing so, ASHES hopes to prompt hospitals to address needed changes in environmental services and follow through with those changes to keep pace with the competition. “We want to arm our members and their administrators with the most accurate and up-to-date information so that decisions can be made on valid statistics,” Costello says.

The program has been marketed slowly, with trial sessions and demos offered repeatedly to educate potential users. “Projects like this take a while to get up and running, so we have yet to go in and run any aggregate reports,” Costello says. “We don’t want to do that until we know we’ve got a fairly large pool of information and data.” Still, the initiative has received a positive response, with calls coming in from directors and managers across the country who are inquiring about the process and the use of the data for their own comparative analysis.

Costello hopes to see a push from the top down in the coming months. “We want to reach that C-suite and let them know that we’ve developed this tool for them, and that we encourage them, as the leaders of their organization, to communicate it with directors and managers of environmental services.”

—Matt Rogers