Since its formation in 1980 Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) has been an international leader in virtually every area of medicine, providing outstanding care to its patients and pioneering breakthroughs that have improved lives around the world. As a major teaching hospital of Harvard University, BWH is a national leader in improving health care quality and safety and has always been at the forefront of the EVS industry when it comes to best practices and technology.
Mohita Gurung is presently an Education Specialist for the Environmental Services (EVS) department, which has been using Walsh QA Inspector since 2006. Considering Mohita’s extensive experience within EVS departments serving as a supervisor and then EVS manager, she is in a unique position to provide insights into the benefits of Walsh QA Inspector for hospitals, patients, and staff.
The Rising Importance of EVS Departments
Hospitals have unique requirements when it comes to environmental hygiene, and the need for a clean and safe environment is more critical today than ever before.
“Right now with Covid, EVS has become an even more essential part of the hospital – without us the hospital can’t run. We’re the last team to go into the room to make sure it’s cleaned and disinfected, and we use Walsh to make sure it’s done correctly. We provide a safe environment for everyone who walks into the hospital.”
Walsh QA Inspector gives Mohita and her team the tools and information they need to perform at their best every day. Walsh QA Inspector has allowed BWH to significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its EVS department.
Improving Patient Satisfaction
Mohita’s role as Education Specialist extends to 500 employees, but her influence doesn’t end there – she takes every opportunity to interact with patients and family members to ensure they receive the highest quality of care.
These interactions don’t just benefit patients, they benefit the hospital as well. Using Walsh QA Inspector, Mohita and her team have the structure and context for positive and meaningful interactions every time they enter a patient’s room; HCAHPS scores have risen as a result.
“The patients feel more comfortable and the customer service part of our HCAHPS scores went up because you’re there communicating with them and have a chance to fix things quickly.”
Data-Driven Improvements and Accountability
Walsh QA Inspector allows supervisors to use a number of different tools to evaluate the cleanliness of rooms and the performance of staff. These tools range from visual inspection checklists to fluorescent marking checklists, providing both qualitative and quantitative evaluation benchmarks that lead to measurable progress over time.
“It helps with accountability because employees see us inspecting, especially when using blacklights and fluorescent markers.”
Objective assessments of environmental hygiene provide the basis for continuous improvement and have become more and more prevalent. Walsh QA Inspector also incorporates ATP bioluminescence measurements in their inspection procedures, giving them yet another method to quantify the performance of their staff.
Modernizing Employee Training
Maintaining impeccable hygiene standards requires exceptional and consistent performance from the cleaning staff. Walsh QA Inspector provides data and reporting to empower people like Mohita to measure the effectiveness of their training protocols and to identify opportunities for improvement.
“The data lets us see who’s lacking, who’s improving, and who needs training.”
Walsh QA Inspector doesn’t just help detect and correct deviations as they arise, but also provides for corrective action training. Fluorescent marking in particular gives Mohita and her team the ability to be precise in their inspections, which leads to detailed feedback and long-term improvements.
“The blacklight lets our supervisors get granular with the inspection and training corrections – are they cleaning the full surface, are they using enough pressure, and so on.”
To learn more about how Walsh QA Inspector can help you automate inspections and improve performance, book a demo with our team here.