Health care facilities deploy compliance solution

The Joint Commission recently provided guidelines stating, “Our survey process will … need to employ physical distancing practices… and will include maximizing the use of technology.” Many hospitals have already taken steps in this direction and others are considering the technology offering from W.W. Grainger - CRx. Betsy L. Pooley, P.E., Director of Facilities and Safety at Akron Children’s Hospital, says “As we venture into the world of increasing virtual surveys and full electronic documentation vs. hundreds of paper-based binders and spreadsheet tracking for numerous facilities, we are certain CRx, which we recently implemented, will make our job so much easier. Management of and visual tracking to ensure standards and documentation are up to date and what is coming due or even more importantly, past due, is sure to make the CRx solution a key component of our future regulatory success.”

Single, cohesive compliance solution

CRx, a digital solution offering from W.W. Grainger and HealthCare Facility Compliance Corp., is doing exactly that by helping to simplify and ensure compliance 24/7. Glenn Lebedz, Atlantic General Hospital’s Director of Support Services, says “CRx ensures 100% compliance with the key facility compliance-related chapters.” Six months after implementation of CRx, “my team is able to keep records current by documenting the information at the time of inspection or at the time activities are performed. The hospital’s work orders are automatically created, with pictures and notes captured at the time of inspection. CRx then notifies staff if risk analysis is required and, if so, suggests necessary interim life safety measures (ILSM) activities based on the risk-analysis results. When work orders are closed, inspection status is automatically updated and stops the ILSM. The dashboard reminds our staff of required tasks, shows when tasks are completed, updates work orders and preventive maintenance data, and files and inserts information into the appropriate e-binders.  In short, it does everything we need that was previously done manually!   CRx provides us with a single repository for all regulatory compliance documentation and provides an alert when updates are needed.  Additionally, all compliance documentation, such as work orders, inspections, repair orders, ILSM and infection control risk assessments, are housed together in a single, cohesive package for verification.”

Better way to ensure and manage compliance 

Regulatory compliance is always top of mind for health care facilities managers. Built to integrate with customers’ work order systems, CRx is exclusively designed for health care facility and safety departments, looking to improve facility efficiency, patient experience, emergency readiness and safety monitoring. Betsy Pooley further comments, “Akron Children’s Hospital began its journey to find a better way to manage its compliance and regulatory documentation in 2019.  With well over 600 life safety, environment of care and emergency preparedness standards to manage on a daily basis, it was a monumental task to try to keep all required documentation, standards responsibility and policies in order and survey-ready on a daily basis.  After evaluating four or five other solutions, we found CRx through our existing relationship with W.W. Grainger. CRx provided us with a simple yet effective and easy to use electronic means to store and sort our data, all while managing the ever-changing regulatory standards.  It also allowed us a way to evaluate, manage and track our never-ending PCRA/ICRA, ceiling access and hot work permits as well as our ILSM across our numerous construction and renovation projects.”

Kym Orange, Sr. Manager, Healthcare Strategy and Sales  Offer Enablement at   W. W. Grainger, says “The addition of CRx software to our portfolio will allow more health care organizations to streamline and simplify regulatory compliance.”  Ilan Nachmany, CEO of HealthCare Facility Compliance Corp, a visionary behind CRx, comments that “With the new COVID-19 impacts to surveying by The Joint Commission, technology and social distancing may take center stage in their future surveys, and CRx will become even more important for hospitals’ compliance initiatives.”

Future of hospital facility compliance  

Sumer Mathur, COO and chief technologist behind CRx, says “Engineers and their staffs can spend too much time with spreadsheets and compliance paperwork. CRx replaces a patchwork of programs and spreadsheets  by sitting on top of a hospital’s work order system and focusing on every compliance-related issue. CRx provides efficiency and saves time, effort and headaches related to maintaining dozens of spreadsheets on different projects, permits, inventory, compliance statuses of different types of assets across facilities, policy review dates, vendor reports and more. CRx also   includes a Vendor Portal to streamline permit processes, and leverages artificial intelligence-based, patent-pending algorithms for ILSM determination at the point of inspection. In addition, CRx has a 'Plan-Fire-Drills-For-Me' feature that ensures compliance requirements and industry best practices are followed. This is the future of hospital facility compliance and it is already here today!”

To schedule a CRx demo, contact your Grainger Representative or visit HealthCare Facility Compliance Corp. website.