Hospital uses Software as Vaccine Against Maintenance Woes
One hospitalized American dies every six minutes from nosocomial infections (including pneumonia) caused by airborne pathogens within hospital facilities. To lessen these deaths, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) enforces standards of care for air transfer and handling for patient rooms and controlled hospital areas such as operating rooms through its environment.
In order to comply with JCAHO standards and remain accredited, hospitals and health care facilities must keep track of their preventive maintenance (PM) activities to show that appropriate steps are taken to maintain vital equipment. Saratoga Hospital (Saratoga Springs, NY) has relied on the Maintenance Manager (MM) line of programs from Eagle Technology, Inc. (Mequon, WI) to collect this information and to track and schedule preventive maintenance for more than five years.
Saratoga is a 143-bed regional care center providing general medical services to the residents of Saratoga Springs and the surrounding communities. Its services include obstetrics, emergency care, and a 72-bed nursing home facility. A new cardiac catheterization lab is currently being built. Original construction of Saratoga took place in 1960 with major additions in 1968 and later in 1980.The four-story facility is now approximately 250,000 sq ft with a staff of 1,200. Engineering specialist Jeff Casale’s 15-person engineering staff handles around 2,000 work orders per year.