August 6 - 7, Houston The Certified Healthcare Facility Manager (CHFM) program offered by the American Hospital Association Certification Center is one way that you can validate your knowledge in the profession and gain further recognition among your peers.

September 12, Arlington TAHFM and Sterling Barnett Little invite you to join us at the Sterling Barnett Little Suite at the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington for the Texas Rangers vs. Oakland Athletics.

September 18, Austin This course presents a business case for HFCx. A methodology is presented for developing a business plan that allows the health care organization’s executive leadership to evaluate the value and the return on investment of embracing the HFCx process.

September 21 - 22, Austin The 2015 COAA-TX Fall Workshop will be a unique opportunity to network with colleagues, learn best practices and help improve industry performance.

New Date! September 18, Dallas The TAHFM Wack 'Em and Stack 'Em Sporting Clays Tournament allows us to support our mission to assist our membership in professional development through support, education and collaboration.

Deanna Martin, ASHE More than 20 hospitals have earned an Energy to Care Award for their work to slash energy use, reduce operational costs, and free up more resources for patient care.

In the coming months, TAHFM will be updating the electronic and printed directory of its membership and supporters. We would like to provide the most accurate and updated information possible to you, so we are asking our members to log on to www.tahfm.org and ensure your profile information is up to date (please do not use abbreviations in your profile for accurate information to be printed)! Please review your profile by Friday, August 14, 2015. If you need your login information, please contact us at info@tahfm.org. We appreciate you taking the time to do this and are excited about providing you with an easy to use networking guide! It has proven to be a valuable resource for all of our members!

Sherry Jacobson, The Dallas Morning News The new Parkland Memorial Hospital received a LEED gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Andis Robeznieks, Modern Healthcare Air quality is one of the first things people notice when they enter Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas in Austin.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Texas Association of Healthcare Facilities Management, we request your support of Antonio "Tony" Suarez as our ASHE Region 7 Board Member. Tony has been a very effective voice for the Texas facility management industry as a past president of TAHFM, and has personally worked with many of you to bring high-quality, low-cost education to all of us. In addition, Tony has supported facility managers and business partners by coordinating opportunities for members to obtain professional designations such as the SASHE, CHC, and CHFM credential via educational and speaking opportunities at our annual Interlink conference.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Texas Association of Healthcare Facilities Management we request your support of Sean Goings’ election as our ASHE Associate Member Director. Sean has been a very effective voice for the healthcare facility management industry as a Business Partner Board Member with TAHFM, and has worked with many of you to bring high-quality, low cost education to all of us. In addition, Sean has supported facility managers and business partners at the national level with his influence and task force assignments as part of the ASHE community.

The Advocacy Highway is ASHE's response to a proliferation of health care regulations that may have confusing and contradictory provisions, which sometimes lead to confusing and contradictory interpretations and implementation in health care facilities. The Advocacy Highway is a two-way communications network between ASHE staff and ASHE members, ASHE Advocacy liaisons, and other health professionals with regulatory issues. The latest Advocacy webinar focused on possible code changes and updates to the 2018 editions of FGI, NFPA® 101®, and NFPA 99 and Regional updates. Click below to access the slides.

Deanna Martin, ASHE The American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) is collaborating with the Joint Commission to provide resources and tools to help hospitals comply with life safety and environment of care requirements.

Jeff Ferenc, Health Facilities Management An estimated 3,200 health care facility professionals attended the 52nd ASHE Annual Conference & Technical Exhibition held at the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center in Boston, which concluded Wednesday.

Michael Nark, Facility Care Within the health care industry, patient safety and comfort are top priorities. People often associate the term energy efficiency with a sacrifice in occupant comfort. However, with the right tools in place, this does not have to be the case. Much of a facility’s energy usage can be tracked back to heating and cooling operations.

On July 21, Texas and Ohio called a cease fire from their heated energy savings battle to provide the best practices for decreasing energy consumption to your hospitals! Learn tips that will save your hospital a significant amount of money AND give Texas the edge to win the competition over Ohio!

Visit TAHFM's Energy Roundup Tips webpage for weekly tips to help you increase your building's energy efficiency. Even if you aren't participating in our Energy Challenge this year, it's still information you can use.

Bob Kehoe, Healthcare Facilities Management Gregory Gicewicz, board president of the Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council (HLAC), looks at what has been learned since a report published in May 2014 in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal identified hospital linens traced to an off-site launderer as the agent of transmission for a deadly fungus that resulted in five deaths at a pediatric hospital.

Beth Burmahl and Suzanna Hoppszallern, Health Facilities Management Despite the slowly recovering economy and sea of health care policy changes implemented in recent years, salaries continue to rise for Health Facilities Management (HFM) readers — some modestly and others by more substantial margins.

Jeff Ferenc, Hospitals & Health Networks With more care moving out of the traditional acute care setting, hospitals are building more ambulatory care centers.