The Association for the Healthcare Environment (AHE) of the American Hospital Association invites those interested in presenting at its EXCHANGE 2017 to submit a proposal for review by the Conference Planning Committee.
Important Dates:
• November 30, 2016: Call for Presentations Opens
• January 6, 2017: Call for Presentations Ends
• March 3, 2017: Notification of Approval
• September 17-22, 2017: EXCHANGE 2017 in Orlando, FL

AHE has started this initiative to encourage professionals in the field to begin, or continue to refer to the departments and the personnel caring for the healthcare environment as environmental services professionals rather than as housekeepers, janitors and custodians. The staff and management teams responsible for maintaining the clinical environment of care require different skills and competencies from those needed in the commercial cleaning and general maintenance industry and it's time we address this critical distinction.

Please help us redefine healthcare environmental services!

Caledonian Record
In November, "Housekeeping" employees at North Country Hospital completed an intensive six-week national certification course designed by the Association for the Healthcare Environment (AHE), whose parent organization is the American Hospital Association (AHA.)

Matt Poe, American Laundry News
The key performance indicators (KPI), also called metrics, in the laundry industry are labor, inventory and utilities.

Aaron Hartung, facilitiesnet.com
From cleanliness and accessibility to heavy wear, wayfinding, and promoting a healing environment, hospitals face a unique, stringent set of challenges.

Debra Levin, Healthcare Design
Of all the patient care areas in an acute care hospital, the intensive care unit (ICU) patient room is the area most likely to see medically fragile patients on a consistent basis.

Jeff Ferenc, Health Facilities Management
Just as clinicians track patients’ vital signs, facilities managers at progressive hospitals monitor essential data from sophisticated sensors placed within systems and equipment that keep health facilities operating efficiently.

Healthcare Facilities Today
University of North Carolina Hospitals' "Clean In, Clean Out" hand-hygiene program cut infection rates, according to an article on the Medscape website.

CleanLink
Trying to avoid cold and flu in the workplace has reached desperate levels, as nearly half of people surveyed would give up a vacation day to a sick worker to ensure they don’t bring illness to the workplace, according to the seventh annual cold and flu season survey from Staples.

Infection Control Today
According to the CDC's FluView report for the week ending December 10, 2016 (week 49), flu activity increased slightly in the continental United States.

Einav Keet, ContagionLive
While hospitals are often thought of as safe places of healing, patients may be at risk for a range of hospital-acquired conditions that drive up medical costs, prolong stays, and can even result in death. However, a recently released report shows that the number of these incidents has significantly declined in recent years.

Joshua A. Krisch, The Scientist
Zika is a mosquito-borne, sexually transmissible virus that is now known to cause a variety of birth defects.

Jeff Boss, Forbes
2017 is slowly approaching, and with a new year comes new challenges.

Tara Rush, Fortune
The importance of emotional intelligence when it comes to leadership is pretty well known in the business world.

By Walter Vernon

By Cindy Nuesslein, RN, MBA, FACHE

To acknowledge the ongoing and outstanding sustainability efforts of healthcare facilities - and environmental service departments in particular - the AHE presents the Environmental Sustainability Certificate Program. This program not only provides guidance on efficient, effective and value-added environmentally sustainable healthcare operations, but also provides it in such a way that is achievable within all budgets.

We need YOU! AHE is gathering input from environmental services departments across the country to identify baseline staffing productivity standards. The results of this data gathering will be used in building staffing models and providing metrics for environmental services directors. You can be a key player in identifying and establishing these important staffing criteria for our industry.