Today’s healthcare technology management (HTM) and healthcare facilities management (HFM) technicians have a tall order. Maintaining the hospital’s most valuable assets requires a balance of time-sensitive requests and preventive work, all while maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements.
Healthcare maintenance software promises to solve many of the challenges that technicians face with tracking, recording, and reporting on maintenance tasks and procedures. However, as helpful as CMMS technology can be for tracking information, the wrong technology can add more work for those in the field.
In the worst case scenario, technicians spend more time recording what they did than performing the work. Often times, this leads to poor technology adoption – creating a number of challenges for the HTM and HFM teams, from lack of consistent data to challenges in team dynamics and employee retention.
Healthcare Maintenance Software Mobile Solutions: Adoption Challenges
The healthcare industry tends to adopt technology slower than other industries – mostly because of regulatory and reporting requirements. On top of that, connectivity, disjointed data, and too many data requirements create challenges for those in maintenance and asset management.
Facilities and asset maintenance often occurs in the areas of the hospital or facility that may not have access to WiFi or cellular coverage. Technology providers must adapt to these challenges. Updating work orders, assets procedures, and other documentation within the CMMS while in offline mode becomes essential. After all, if it can’t be updated in real time while updating the equipment, it becomes easier to skip tracking altogether.
This creates another key issue for HTM and HFM teams: documentation. Sometimes detailed updates make it into the CMMS; and other times, it’s not documented at all. Beyond visibility into asset performance, it creates challenges with adhering to compliance requirements.
Speaking of gathering the right data – this can often create an issue for technicians and field teams. The flexibility of CMMS solutions means that fields can be created to track just about anything. In the real world, this can become a bit too detailed for technicians in the field, who are trying to update the asset information on the fly.
These three challenges lead to adoption issues for technicians, who are focused on what they can do to get their jobs done correctly and efficiently. But, this lack of adoption can mean that the CMMS becomes filled with work orders that have half the required details, which makes it less useful for all stakeholders.
Adapting to the Unique Needs of Technicians
From what FSI’s team has heard from technicians in the field, there are a few areas of focus that can make this technology – and mobile applications – more readily adopted.
The most important thing? Making it work for their tasks, which are constantly on the go. This means that mobile applications should work fast, and when technicians are updating work orders, assets or procedures; only ask them to provide the information that’s required for the task at hand. It’s great to get secondary information, but this is time consuming and often creates data overload, with information that isn’t accessed or analyzed as originally intended.
By limiting the fields to what matters most, technicians can quickly fill out the work orders with the information that can be used to close the work order and track appropriately for compliance and reporting requirements. As for the other details? There are other features in the CMMS, like workflows, that can be used to capture this information in the required fields, while making it easier for technicians to do their jobs in the process.
Better work order management starts with how to view the work orders in the application. Simplifying what features are available in the mobile app makes it easier for technicians to get to the heart of it – and find exactly where they should be focusing their time. Organizing the view so technicians can see their work orders, and filter by priority, makes it easier for them to know what to do and when.
Aligning Productivity with Technology: Future of Mobile Healthcare Maintenance Software
Here at FSI, our team focuses on innovation to help our end users find more value from the software solutions that we provide. In doing so, we design tools to help every member of the HTM and HFM teams. From executive leadership to the technician, our technology boasts functionality to help them get their jobs done faster and more efficiently.
In a recent evaluation of mobile applications and adoption challenges in the field, our team found that there’s a disconnect between what’s in the market and what’s required by technicians to do their jobs most effectively. This has helped us identify a need to build out mobile applications that better orient with their primary focus: accessing, recording, and closing out work orders.
As we look to the future of mobile healthcare maintenance software, it will continue to evolve to meet the unique needs of the people using these tools. What’s required for a manager looks different than that of a technician. The mobile applications that serve these audiences will become more focused for each of these audiences so they can get the data they require to do their jobs more effectively. In doing so, it will help to optimize the CMMS as a whole – and optimize the entire asset and facilities management programs.
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