Management plans & annual reviews
The Joint Commission has warned organizations for years not to “parrot” standards in their management plans. The BPM approach to management plans adheres to this exactly.  BPM management plans are only a few pages in length and even if they wanted to wouldn’t have enough space to parrot standards.  Instead, they focus on core program elements and outcomes.  And because they are integrated with the annual reviews and their ability to be measured, become solid roadmaps for each program. 

The BPM approach to annual reviews uses a logical information flow model.  At its core is the concept of “we did this in the hopes of achieving this, and, having reviewed our performance, will do this next year to achieve that.”  And because they are integrated with the management plans, become the equivalent of a steering wheel for each program. 

Risk assessments
The BPM risk assessment is more than a static, one-time event/document.  Instead it is a living, helpful tool that helps organizations manage their ongoing improvement and preparedness efforts.  It begins by examining each department against numerous facets of each Environment of Care program, assigning a numeric risk to each instance.   Next, it examines the level of preparedness for each instance and provides a way of tracking this preparedness as it improves.

The preparedness level provides a starting point and a periodic snapshot for tracking organization-wide efforts to improve preparedness over time.  This gap is identified and tracked via the Annual Review. 

Electronic environmental rounds management
ezRounds^TM makes short work of Environmental Rounds.  No more stacks of paper and waiting for team members to submit results of the last survey.  No more failing to close out found deficiencies because only one person can hold the source document.  Simply fill in the handheld form while field-surveying and sync to the web.  Team members have instant access to deficiencies and opportunities without waiting for email or the next Safety Meeting. 

Electronic Interim Life Safety Assessment (ILSA) and Infection Control Risk Assessment (ICRA) management
ezAssessTM eliminates the stacks of paper created using traditional ILSA/M approaches and replaces them with a series of forms.  These forms are filled-out using a handheld device and synchronized to the web.  The forms record dates, times and signatures, ensuring your program isn’t “pencil-whipped.”

EC.5 through EC.9 compliance assistance
Individually, none of the fire safety or critical utilities systems would be hard to maintain.  However, add them all together and suddenly it becomes difficult not to miss something.  Instead of just handing you a form, BPM can help you set up the systems infrastructure that will virtually ensure ongoing regulatory compliance.

Building Life Safety Assessment and SOC development
BPM uses a pragmatic approach to the SOC.  We know your money is precious and the last thing you need is to spend all of your operating profit on fixing things that don’t really improve life safety.  We do this by using a holistic approach to NFPA101 compliance, carefully considering all opportunities for equivalencies and exceptions in the code.   We can even help you interact with the Joint Commission.  Using this approach founder Brad Balon was able to eliminate millions of dollars of unnecessary PFI work at dozens of hospitals.  Often this money was re-allocated to other infrastructure efforts.  

Electronic ILSM/ILSM management with ezAssess^TM
This exciting new program allows organizations to maintain all their ILSA/M documentation in a single place, the Web.  No more giant stacks of paper to look through.  Instead, the web site will maintain a rolling 5 years of documentation.  If that’s not enough reports can be exported to Word or Excel files.  Simply select the project, fill out the form and sync to the web. 

PFI project management assistance
Brad had assisted dozens of hospitals with managing their PFIs.  Typically, these hospitals were faced with hundreds of PFIs with no good way of addressing them or even queuing them up.   To make matters worse, many seemed to using very good looking web sites that seemed to be designed around reporting information to the Joint Commission, not around managing the work.  The typical solution involved extracting the pertinent information from these sites, managing the effort using a spreadsheet or the local CMMS program, and using the original web site for bookkeeping purposes only.  In some instances, Brad assisted with the PFI management effort, obtaining competitive bids when necessary, and helping to direct the efforts of in-house and contract maintenance personnel. 

BPM uses the same approach and we have found that most organizations just need some initial assistance organizing the work and typically just a little assistance down stream to make sure things don’t get off track.

Information Mining and Visibility
Many transactional systems (e.g. Meditech) do a good job of keeping track of things but they often make analysis difficult or impossible.  BPM can help you get the information out of these systems so it can be analyzed and presented in ways that help you plan for and manage your operation.  Solutions range from stand-alone systems running on a single computer to web-based solutions allowing multiple people to examine their own information.  

Equipment Inventory Development
Even if you’ve bought a CMMS program you still have to load it with equipment and configure the overall maintenance program.  This could be done in-house but it takes time, manpower and a fair amount of expertise you may not have available.  You could hire a third party or even the company that sold you the CMMS program, but it seems none of them seem to know very much about hospitals and hospital equipment. 

Predictive and Preventive Maintenance (PdM)
PdM is a maintenance approach based on the notion that equipment should be maintained based upon its needs.  And the best way of determining equipment needs is to run some diagnostic tests on them, for example to see whether they are making a different noise than they were a short time ago or if a change in temperature has occurred. 

A good example of PdM is infrared testing of heavy electrical equipment, using thermal images to find things that human eyes could not.  Most Facilities Managers wouldn’t just PM all this equipment when only some needs attention.  So why not the same approach for all the electrical equipment? Why not use a similar approach for all the building equipment?  We asked the same question then we went looking for a solution.

Balon Process Management is proud to have partnered with Design Maintenance Systems Inc., makers of MAINTelligence and InspectCE equipment management software.  These systems can be used alone or in conjunction with other CMMS system, employing a combined PdM/PM approach.  
PdM will help you:

• Reduce maintenance, labor, downtime and energy costs
• Prevent unscheduled equipment shutdowns
• Develop and maintain a capital replacement schedule/budget
• Improve reliability and safety
• nsure regulatory compliance

Virtual Project Management
You may currently be struggling with limited maintenance staff.  But chances are you are probably equally strapped in the project management department as well.