Here’s what to expect at the inaugural Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference

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The American Society for Health Care Engineering’s (ASHE’s) inaugural Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference^TM will take place July 21-24 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif.

The Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference is an evolution of the ASHE Annual Conference & Technical Exhibition, which has been the premier conference for professionals in the health care facilities field for more than six decades. The conference’s new identity, which was announced last year at the 60th ASHE Annual Conference, reflects ASHE’s commitment to equipping its members to meet the opportunities and challenges presented by the rapidly changing health care field.

The conference is geared toward an array of health care physical environment professionals, including health care facilities managers, hospital and system executive leadership, construction managers, infection preventionists, safety professionals and technicians at all career stages.

Tailored conference tracks at four knowledge levels align with different career stages, from foundational to strategic, empowering attendees to choose a personalized conference experience while earning continuing education credits toward Certified Health Care Facility Manager and other industry-standard certifications.

Keynote and general sessions

In addition to a wide range of concurrent technical sessions, an active pre- and post-conference program (see sidebar on page 39) and a world-class exhibition of products and services providers, the Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference will feature engaging keynote and general sessions, including the following:

• Welcome and keynote session — “Reconnecting with Your Purpose.” “Your purpose is not your job; it is your calling,” says Bertice Berry, Ph.D. Berry, an author, sociologist, comedienne and educator, will guide attendees in reconnecting with their purpose for the improvement of the health care physical environment.
• General session — “Building Together: ASHE Community Accomplishments & Future Goals.” ASHE’s 2022-24 strategic plan brought the community together around three major areas of focus: operational optimization, workforce development and capital planning. Join ASHE Executive Director Lizzie Ortolano, 2024 ASHE President Skanda V. Skandaverl and others in this session as they share more about the resources, advocacy and engagement activities that have taken place on the chapter, regional and national levels.
• Keynote session — “Go From A to THE^®: Stop Being A Leader. Start Being THE Leader!” Today’s consumers, employees and followers want THE product, THE solution and THE leader to follow. Ryan Avery is the right speaker to deliver game-changing, life-magnifying strategies that allow audience members to step up to achieve next-level results.
• General session — “Navigating the Future: Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Driven Facilities and Energy Management at Stanford Medicine.” Join the staff of Stanford Medicine for a panel discussion on the application of AI to energy and building management. 
• General session — “Just Ask ASHE.” ASHE’s codes and standards experts will discuss emerging compliance issues and offer answers to specific questions. Attendees are invited to ask questions about any of the codes and standards related to health care facilities.
• General session — “Overcoming CMS Hurdles in Health Care Decarbonization.” The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Conditions of Participation currently reference the 2012 editions of the National Fire Protection Association’s NFPA 99, Health Care Facilities Code, and NFPA 101^®, Life Safety Code^®. While the health care field is under pressure to decarbonize, many of the existing regulations are hindering its ability to achieve its full decarbonization potential. In this session, Leah Hummel, AIA, CHFM, CHC, CHOP, SASHE, ASHE’s senior associate director of regulatory affairs, will explore the impact of these reference publications on the industry’s decarbonization efforts and uncover the opportunities that lie within them.

In addition to these sessions, other programs include an introduction to using facility condition assessments to communicate facilities priorities to hospital executives; case studies on hospitals tackling decarbonization, future-proofing capital projects and introducing automation to infection control risk assessments; a roundup of changes to NFPA codes; and a deep dive on the challenges of lithium-ion batteries.

Add-on events bring more to the conference experience

The American Society for Health Care Engineering’s (ASHE’s) Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference^TM pre-conference and post-conference add-on events will increase conference take-away value with priceless knowledge as well as networking opportunities and education credits. Additional fees are required to attend. Events include:

• “Certified Health Care Facility Manager (CHFM) Exam Review Program.” Designed to provide a final check before taking the CHFM exam, this pre-conference course will help attendees gain confidence in the five key competency areas.
• “Health Care Facility Management: Daily Operations.” Attendees will see how facilities managers must be proficient across a set of core competencies to perform day-to-day facilities management in the modern health care setting.
• “ASHE ICRA (Infection Control Risk Assessment) 2.0^™ Training Program.” Tap into essential education that can be used alongside the ASHE ICRA 2.0™ Toolkit and prevent the spread of life-threatening infections. Attendees of this pre-conference workshop will take part in a training program to engage in meaningful infection prevention by using the ASHE ICRA 2.0 tool, an ICRA 2.0 process guide and training materials.
• “Hospital Electrification: A View from the Finish Line.” Attendees will discuss sustainability concepts and align them with the overarching mission of organizations. They will then discuss how incorporating those different perspectives enables effective organizational sustainability teams. In the afternoon, attendees will hear from University of California Irvine Medical Center officials about the system’s decarbonization initiatives and tour the nation’s first all-electric central utility plant.
• “ASHE Chapter Leadership Forum & Awards Presentation.” In this pre-conference program, chapter members will engage fellow members in important dialogue, and share ideas and discover solutions to chapter challenges as well as gain valuable takeaways from colleagues and refine their leadership skills.
• “The Joint Commission Lunch and Learn.” Attendees will learn tips from The Joint Commission leadership for survey preparation and documentation, information regarding new or updated elements of performance and review the most common physical environment deficiencies surveyors are seeing.
• “Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC): Four Levels of Control and Use of Alternate Equipment Management (AEM).” This post-conference session will cover the vital role of inspection, testing and maintenance documentation in ensuring patient safety and regulatory compliance and supporting an AEM program.
• “DNV’s Physical Environment Operations Professional Quality Workshop.” This post-conference workshop is based on DNV Healthcare USA Inc.’s National Integrated Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations standards and the International Organization of Standardization’s ISO 9001-2015 requirements.