The Pandemic is adding strain in all departments. Facilities is no exception. The financial and operational stress caused by COVID-19 is unprecedented, creating several critical risks to hospitals including: Risk to Business Continuity Risk to Patient Care and Staff Safety Risk of Cost Overruns both Administrative and Unbudgeted We’ve all seen the news. England’s Prime Minister was hospitalized, Dr. Fauci had to follow a modified quarantine, and members of the White house coronavirus task force as well as members of Congress had to quarantine. Facilities teams are struggling as they deal wit ..read more

Technology today makes it a breeze! Healthcare facilities teams certainly want to be ready for visits from the CMS or the Department of Health. So, what if there is a way you could be ready… anytime? Immediate Jeopardy or Condition-Level Deficiency – yes, those are the terms you never want to hear if you are a Facility Manager in healthcare! That’s why pulling together documentation to support a compliance survey is always stressful and time consuming especially in the area of Physical Environment of Care. Gathering information and updating records, on hundreds if not thousands of pieces of eq ..read more

When coming back to work after several months of the shutdown, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s difficult to know what to expect. Facilities professionals are likely to have their hands full. Among the many challenges they face are rearranging the workplace and setting up facilities for the required social distancing standards that are evolving as we speak. This includes health and safety signage, as well as visual directives to influence behavior in the workplace. Communicating the necessity for social distancing is not likely to be effective in an email. Meanwhile, the maintenance and u ..read more

My career of selling services and software to the Facilities Maintenance field started back in 1998.   I have talked to many amazing people in the industry over these past 22 years and have heard some fascinating stories.  Stories of resiliency, stress, humor, and some downright bizarre.Have you ever had to get a moose out of a high school gym?  Coordinated getting a mega-watt generator and batteries to the near top of the Empire State Building? I know someone who has.  As I have listened to these stories it is amazing that even though much has changed; so much has sta ..read more

This week, the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) released an informative new document to guide the reopening of commercial facilities during the novel coronavirus outbreak. This detailed six-page guide talks about the safety and prevention measures that need to be followed in order to prepare facilities for re-entry of tenants, building personnel, vendors, contractors, etc. Here’s a quick look at the topics which are covered: Preparing facilities for re-entry: The best time to plan out a re-entry is before the lockdown restrictions are lifted where representatives from the build ..read more

We have all seen images of the plan rooms depicted above. Heck, it might be as easy as a walk down a hall to see your own similar looking plan room. It has an organization that you and your team are comfortable with. It is a 5000-piece puzzle just waiting to be tackled. You know what each tag, color, and bin means to help piece the puzzle together.  There is a sense of nostalgia as you smell the aging, brittle paper, the bright blue painted with age to a steely gray, the white lines blurring a bit.  You remember back to when this was a fresh new set of blueprints delivered in a tight ..read more

Do you have the facility management technology tools, knowledge and skill sets to survive the coming decade? If you’re not sure, read this blog and check out my recent 4 -minute webcast, 5 Facility Management Tech Tips to Survive the Coming Decade, sponsored by Facility Executive Management Magazine. In my presentation, I stress how the facility management industry must leverage the one technology tool that everyone has—a mobile phone. If you and your team can’t access all the facilities management content that you need to do your job on your cell phone, you’re falling behind and it ..read more

During an emergency, every second counts. Fast response is imperative, whether that is shutting down a piece of equipment to prevent damage or evacuating an area to avoid potential injuries. For hospitals, preparation for any emergency or natural disaster and responding appropriately puts your facility at the ready to continue providing vital healthcare services to the community. Depending on your geographic region and facility specifics, you will need to take into account what might impact your operations and have a plan for every potential situation that might occur. Here are a few tips to c ..read more

Ready.gov recognizes each September as National Preparedness Month, using it as an opportunity to remind the community about the importance of disaster preparation. Given that facilities teams play such a critical role before and during emergencies, we’re using this focus as a reason to provide some of the best free resources to assist facility managers with disaster preparedness. In this article, we’ll provide links and short overviews of 13 top resources to give you a boost no matter where you are in the emergency preparation process. Emergency Prep Resources to Start With Even for mana ..read more

Facilities Managers have to know everything about their buildings, from when and how it was built, to the inspections it passed, problems that were fixed, upgrades that were made, and tenant improvements that have taken place over the lifespan of the structure. Thousands of documents have to be maintained, updated, and kept easily accessible. They are the life blood for facilities maintenance. Yet facilities managers are often faced with significant document control and building information management challenges: Information is required to be continuously updated Documents and information ar ..read more