Three Keys to Modernizing Your Compliance Management

The evolving regulatory landscape combined with the need to do more with fewer resources continues to push healthcare facilities and asset management teams. To support these changing dynamics, teams seek tools that can provide the support necessary to meet compliance requirements. Technology, like CMMS platforms, provide features that can automate manual processes, and simplify other tasks. 

More specifically, this technology can support compliance management and reporting requirements. Beyond tracking equipment inventory and maintenance activities, a CMMS can facilitate compliance – and help shape the data and reporting required to meet the changing regulatory requirements for a more modernized approach. 

Today, there are three key areas where this can provide significant impact for healthcare facilities management (HFM) and healthcare technology management (HTM) teams.  

#1 Seamless Rounding

Let’s face it: there is a web of compliance and regulatory requirements for HFM and HTM teams. Joint Commission, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are a few that come to mind. On top of that, there are numerous local safety, fire, and building codes that teams must follow. 

Tracking the various requirements for each of these can be challenging. With specific data points – or Elements of Performance – that are necessary for each, this can include everything from life safety to infection control to equipment management to facilities maintenance.

Now, considering the breadth and depth of the Elements of Performance requested across regulatory bodies, there’s a great deal of information that must be captured, tracked, and analyzed. Without the right tools in place, it is nearly impossible to pull everything together to truly see assets and facilities performance. 

Using a CMMS with hospital rounding software built at its core can give essential tools to simplify the entire process for rounding, whether for facilities or assets. It helps to track the lifecycle of individual assets – giving a full record of which round activities have occurred, and what was found with each. 

For facilities teams, it can give insight into the state of the hospital and infrastructure. Understanding safety and environmental conditions can help identify where to prioritize maintenance; but also inform capital planning and broader organizational initiatives. 

With all rounding activities tracked within the CMMS across assets and facilities, hospitals have a single source of truth to truly understand what’s going on within their facilities. This can put data at the core of any key decisions – even beyond compliance – from capital planning to asset maintenance to building safety. 

#2 Comprehensive Space Management

Understanding how to optimize space more effectively can provide multiple benefits. The most obvious comes from reducing operational costs for the hospital or healthcare facility with better space utilization, leading to significant cost savings. 

But, it doesn’t end here. Using technology to help visualize, track, and understand how your space gets used can give deeper insights into how your space management aligns with compliance requirements; as well as fuel critical decisions for HTM, HFM, and patient care teams. 

With a single (and easy-to-read) view, it also provides a depth of information that otherwise may be stored in several different systems; or difficult to track down. The technology offers a full look at key building data, highlighting key information like cost center, square footage, and department information as well. 

Unified facility data means it becomes a simple click-and-edit action to know what’s happening in each room of the hospital – helping to inform room statuses while tracking occupancy for National Fire Protection Association standards, for instance. While this details how rooms and specific areas are being used, it can also automate reporting for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements – meaning your organization can get 100% of reimbursements. 

In addition, the insights gathered via hospital rounding software for Environment of Care can be supplemented with what’s tracked in space management solutions. Together, in one solution, the CMMS brings the data together for a comprehensive report which can be helpful for compliance, but also for internal decision making. For instance, this data can highlight how spaces are used, and what’s being done to optimize patient care and safety. 

#3 Workflow Automations

As teams face resource constraints (both for people and money), there’s a need to figure out how to do the same amount of work – or even more, given the changing internal dynamics. 

This is where the right CMMS solution can give lift to HTM and HFM teams. Automations built within the system can trigger workflows that capture information in the background, or even kick off an approval process based on what information is captured. 

In the case of work orders, for instance, there may be standard fields that require technicians to input the same information over and over again. Or perhaps there are fields that add complexity to work orders, challenging technicians to get the right information in place – and skipping what’s most important for compliance reporting. 

With workflows, this can all be automated. Let’s say a technician conducts an annual preventive maintenance. In doing so, they see a different issue with the asset. The technician then creates a child work order to track the issue; and the system automatically closes the parent work order. This ensures that compliance requirements are met for the preventive maintenance activity; while creating an appropriate work order for the new issue. 

In Summary: The Future of Compliance Management

For HFM and HTM teams, compliance management will continue to be a key area of focus as dynamics continue to shift and change. While technology like a CMMS can provide support across standard maintenance activities, it can also monitor other key areas – like rounding and space management – to turn compliance reporting into an opportunity to optimize hospital operations. 

In addition, reporting and managing to these requirements can become easier with the adoption of technology; and using a modern CMMS can help with getting the data and reporting required, without putting more on already resource-strained teams. 

The healthcare landscape continues to evolve; and this requires HFM and HTM teams to be more agile. To do so, it requires technology to quickly evolve and respond – for compliance and other key areas of facilities and technology management. 

For more on how to modernize your compliance management with FSI, contact us here.