By Dan Hounsell, Senior Editor

Facilities data has never been more critical, and healthcare facilities managers have never struggled more to gather, analyze and use building data effectively. There are many reasons for the struggle. Operating budgets are tight, and few organizations have dedicated funding to manage facilities information.  

The lack of a strategic approach causes inefficiencies that last throughout the asset’s performance life. Data exists in sources as diverse as life safety drawings, condition assessments, fire alarm systems and space management applications. But perhaps the most critical source of facilities data for managers are computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS). 

Attendees of the Health Care Facilities Innovation conference in Anaheim last July learned a range of insights designed to help them take control of their CMMS in order to more effectively manage healthcare facility data to benefit their departments and organizations, especially when it comes to compliance. 

The session aimed to help attendees recognize the vulnerabilities of their CMMS, offer guidance on taking control of their software and its data, implement a structured approach to its assessment, customization, and ongoing maintenance, and ensure the application meets the organizations’ operational and compliance needs. 

Several healthcare organizations — including the American Society for Health Care Engineering and the Facility Guidelines Institute — have been working together to standardize the nomenclature surrounding healthcare facilities data used in CMMS and elsewhere.

Related: Facility Condition Assessments and the Bottom Line

The nomenclature being standardized involves the classification for buildings and their functional elements. The effort aims to give facility planners, designers, and operators a common nomenclature to use in their management efforts — specifically in their CMMS. The goal is to simplify the management of building records, streamline healthcare facility risk management, increase compliance with regulatory requirements and support benchmarking to improve the total cost of ownership. 

For managers who believe purchasing a new CMMS is the answer to their data management challenges, think again. 

“The best CMMS is the one you already have,” says Taylor Vaughn, facility manager at Children's Health in Dallas. Vaughn is responsible for ensuring systemwide compliance with facilities-related regulatory compliance. “Switching to a new CMMS is not going to make anything better unless your data gets better.” 

The process of categorizing facility data focuses on five areas: buildings, functional areas, spaces, building systems and assets. While these areas might seem largely distinct, they are related in one very critical way. 

“The five classifications are linked," says Ryan Schramm, senior systems manager of facilities operations with Banner Health. “Once you have all of them, you can run a risk assessment and understand the impact if something goes down.” 

Schramm and Vaughn offered attendees a 10-point process that highlights areas to focus on to take control of a CMMS to in turn gain control of, manage and use facilities data. The process targets: real estate and location information; asset nomenclature; asset risk assessment; asset management program eligibility; procedures and tasks; schedules and frequency; assignment of work; work orders; reporting dashboards; and leadership. 

For good reason, the first two items — real estate and location information, and asset nomenclature — are “the most important elements,” according to Vaughn. “Without accurate information on the name and location, a CMMS is not going to work.” 

To keep the flow of reliable facilities data coming in the form of completed CMMS work orders, Vaughn cautions managers to avoid assigning CMMS work orders to a specific technician and instead assign them to a group. 

“This keeps from having to move work orders around if a technician is out,” she says, adding that managers need to closely track the progress of work orders to avoid having technicians select the most appealing tasks. “You have to watch for cherry picking. Doing this reduces administrative hassle.”

Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.