For safety and optimal operations, technology matters

It’s a busy time of the year professionally and personally for almost all of us, but I encourage you to take time to read this month’s issue of Infrastructure News.

I especially encourage you to read the report “Infrastructures to Improve Life Safety” in this month’s newsletter by Health Facilities Management Editor Mike Hrickiewicz, who takes a close look at the critical role infrastructure plays in patient safety.

It’s an issue about which facilities professionals would be wise to develop some degree of expertise because it impacts them as well as clinicians. It also affects your health are facility’s financial standing because of reimbursement rules.

The report, which is part of comprehensive coverage of the patient safety issue in the December 2015 issue of HFM, explains how technology and engineering systems help to boost the environment of care and are becoming the backbone of efforts to improve patient safety.

Infrastructure in a variety of emerging or existing forms — HVAC systems that maintain optimal airflow to help prevent infections, alarm systems to reduce patients falls or plumbing that provides safe water — impact patient safety in important ways. Because they are frequently out of sight their critical role in patient safety is often overlooked.
 
There’s a lot more good reading in this issue too. A feature titled  “Aligning hospital operations with building automation” probes the latest products on the market and describes how the ongoing developments in this technology continue to raise the bar for optimal performance of HVAC systems and other facility operations the technology monitors and controls too. 

A case study entitled “Medical center finds power, reporting solutions in one system” by yours truly describes how Tift Regional Medical Center in Tifton, Ga., saved two birds with one feeder by installing a new backup generator system that boosted its power supply and required reporting capabilities.

The report shows again how technology meets so many challenges, this time by ensuring safety, improving efficiency and meeting code requirements at the same time. That’s known as saving three birds with one feeder!   

There’s more, including a report by Patrick Andrus, deputy executive director of operations, ASHE, on how health care facilities help to meet health care’s Triple Aim and why you should attend the 2016 International Summit & Exhibition on Health Facility Planning, Design & Construction March 23 in San Diego.   

And, finally, in this issue you also get codes and standards updates and news you can use.

Happy holidays and happy reading.