Case Study: Space Condition Management
The Challenge
The need to maintain high aesthetic standards
With seven distinguished hospital facilities and more than 2,000 licensed beds, the Detroit Medical Center (DMC) is the largest health care provider in southeastern Michigan. DMC prides itself on employing best practices and promoting an atmosphere of care and professionalism.
DMC started a performance improvement initiative to make continuous improvements to their environment of care, and to help fulfill this initiative, DMC needed a clearly defined inspection and reporting method to monitor the condition of patient rooms and public areas.
The Solution
A customized solution for inspecting, recording, and maintaining room conditions
Due to the success DMC had with Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) and their inspection and reporting solution for life safety management, DMC consulted ATG again to address the new challenge. ATG used their exclusive technology to develop a special Space Condition Management (SCM) solution based on DMC’s particular goals and concerns.
The SCM solution uses a Pocket PC-based inspection process along with a secure, web-based reporting interface, which does not require software installed on-site. DMC can use the SCM to monitor space conditions and any room elements they designate, such as:
| • carpentry • electrical • mechanical • millwork • lights |
• plumbing fixtures • cabinet work • wall finishes • floors • room temperatures |
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Use the Pocket PC to easily inspect rooms at the touch of a button—no clipboards, no writing anything down. |
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In collaboration with the administrative team at DMC, ATG developed the SCM solution. First, ATG applied barcodes to all door frames and programmed the Pocket PC with the inspection criteria. Once the barcoding had been completed, DMC facility personnel would then use the Pocket PC on a continuous basis to scan the barcodes and monitor the conditions of the room elements.
All of the inspection results are available to authorized users via the Enterprise Active Visual System™ (AVS), a secure web portal developed by ATG. Once inspections are completed, managers could then use the AVS to analyze the results at a glance and see where corrective actions are needed.
Click on the visual layout to see the condition status of any room at a glance.
Run reports from the SCM web portal and
use information to generate work orders.
The Results
A well-defined methodology to maintain a pleasant environment
With the SCM in place, DMC now has an efficient solution to help them improve the overall condition of their facility and maintain a pleasant, healing environment for their patients. Facility personnel can easily make note of leaky faucets, extreme room temperatures, damaged walls, missing floor and ceiling tiles, or anything else that would make the facility less appealing to patients.
Managers are better able to make informed decisions and use information to generate work orders, thereby reducing the time between when the deficiencies are noticed and when they are corrected. DMC is able to continue their high standards of facility excellence and handle space-condition issues efficiently—and to notice them before patients do.
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