Project managers, contractors and facilities managers alike know how difficult it is to align the whole team around safe infection control practices during construction, renovation and maintenance (CRM) activities. After 25 years, ASHE recently released an ICRA 2.0 to make it easier for teams to assess projects. Furthermore, ASHE has developed training to help teams build better communication around the risks and controls in these situations.

The FGI Guidelines for Design and Construction documents are developed by professionals with a dedication to health and residential care and have spent thousands of hours preparing the 2022 series of Guidelines for publication. Join us as members of the 2022 Health Guidelines Revision Committee highlight changes in the 2022 FGI Guidelines, including new and revised behavioral and mental health spaces, clinical treatment areas and patient care units. Updates revisit familiar topics (e.g., ED treatment areas) and reflect new perspectives (e.g., emPATH units), all while balancing the need to make design affordable, accessible and maintainable.

An interprofessional care team model (ICTM) is essential to providing safe, effective and high-quality health care. The development of an ICTM was a pivotal focus in the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU’s (CHoR) Wonder Tower. From the project’s beginning, the clinical team was engaged, with an interprofessional mindset, to develop the building. Current state analysis identified several barriers to ICTM. Future state mapping developed targets for process improvement. Design development and intent documents highlighted the ICTM spaces and detailed the expected collaboration and experience within the space. Detailed operational maps focused on shifting the cultural mindset, incorporating decisions made along the way, including staffing models and technology. Integrating clinical perspectives throughout the CHoR approach resulted design and operational plans intended to shift the care paradigm from one of siloed to teams to an interprofessional care team model, resulting in increased communication, collaboration, experience and satisfaction, and improved clinical outcomes.

Are you “Ready Day One” for accreditation? Your ROI = Risk of Inaction can greatly outweigh the traditional ROI = Return on Investment. Join this session to learn how to take control of your facility and be “Ready Day One” for accreditation! For example, some health systems have healthy PDC systems and processes, others do not. Regardless, being “Ready Day One” for accreditation is the building block of the operational excellence, so everyone needs to address their true capability and correct if necessary. . The creation of facility-friendly, survey-ready life safety drawings, life safety systems assessments and documentation review is crucial to all facility operations and accreditation.

This session will be a roundtable discussion, including interactive audience participation via smart phone survey, that outlines the national trends in carbon emission reduction policies and what technologies are available (and more importantly, viable) to help electrify building heating and cooling systems. The discussion will feature real-life application to a new state-of-the-art medical office building in an urban setting. This discussion will describe how innovative solutions can be implemented and how they affect initial massing of the building and yet maintain flexibility over time. Fundamental design features, including building envelope design, MEP space for roof-mounted equipment, central mechanical room space, ceiling cavity space and shaft space will be discussed. From an operational perspective, we will discuss how service and maintenance will differ from the past when newer technologies are applied.

After two years engulfed in a global pandemic, hear from owners and industry experts on lessons learned, current shifts and future trends in PDC for health care.

As small-format facilities (i.e., rural, critical access and micro) struggle to remain financially viable, re-therm kitchens can innovatively reduce construction and operational costs. Owners and operators discuss how they achieved improved costsavings and dining experience in their small-format health care facility, while designers and operational consultants share the advantages of a re-therm kitchen model to reduce costs and achieve operational excellence.

This presentation will review the design of psychiatric treatment environments through an operational lens. We will discuss the impact of design decisions on operational efficiency and clinical effectiveness. The talk will include specific and actionable recommendations on making good decisions during programming and planning based on operational best practices. Over the life of a psychiatric treatment environment, the cost of staffing will greatly outweigh the initial capital costs. Even small impacts on the design of the space can lead to big savings and/or better outcomes over the life of the facility. Planning for operational efficiency and effectiveness is different in behavioral health care than in other health care environments. Because patients are ambulatory, the traditional metrics of nurse walking distances per shift are not useful for measuring the overall impact on staffing. Instead other metrics such as the number of staff needed for seclusion, observability of patient room doors for night shift, availability of support staff for incidents, medication delivery processes, and management of dining and activity time are key drivers of staffing needs and support. All these processes are heavily influenced by the design of the space.

What happens when your infection prevention leader calls and informs engineering/plant services they’re investigating an HAI or SSI? They’re quick to check their four boxes: (1) Temp/humidity, (2) correct pressurization, (3) proper exchanges and (4) filter changed per PM schedule. “Yep! We’re good!” Despite having all that documentation, clinical staff are rarely convinced it wasn’t too hot/humid in the room. In one of our hospitals in Nashville, TN we weren’t satisfied with just checking our boxes. We wanted to qualify and visualize our ORs’ airflow, and we did it using a simple but data-powerful device. In the last year we have used this data and effectively learned what is or is not causing pathogens in our airflow and infections to our patients.

Occupancy of a new and renovated health care space triggers immediate regulatory and safety requirements including location of emergency shut-off valves, accurate inventory counts, preventive maintenance procedures for equipment, and updated and accurate life safety drawings. As an industry, there has been an increase in the inclusion of end-users in the design process. However, transitioning to operations is an area where increased collaboration with facilities can yield greater results and improved safety. The presentation will include experiences from the perspective of a facilities professional and a consultant. Specific successful and unsuccessful case studies will be presented. Ideas and suggestions for all stakeholders to improve the transition process will be presented. The presenters will use a "fireside chat" format to share their perspectives, to react to each other and engage with the attendees.