Why Healthcare Facilities Management Is Critical to Patient Safety

[Music] Thank you so much for tuning into Facilities and Focus. My name is McKenna Morales and I am the Managing Editor of Facilities, not in your host of this very podcast. It is such a pleasure to be a part of your journey on the Internet. To continue on with our Healthcare Facilities theme, today I am joined by Yannat Vega. Yannat is the Director of Facilities and Environmental Services at El Rio Health, one of the nation's largest federally qualified health centers in Tucson. In her role, she leads operations, environmental services, transportation and capital projects across a multi-site healthcare network, creating safe patient-centered environments. With the background in architecture, Yannat brings expertise in design, space planning and interior design, helping streamline projects and align facilities with clinical needs. She is widely recognized for her collaborative people first leadership and for champion women and facilities management, while supporting local vendors and strengthening community partnerships. Thank you so much for joining me today Yannat. How are you? I'm good. Thank you for having me. Good. So as I was pitching you to come on to the podcast, I mentioned how I went to Ask You's Healthcare Innovation Conference last summer and where were we in Columbus. And one of their keynote speakers mentioned about how healthcare is a really unforgiving job. Can you just explain how compliance directly impacts patient safety even in ways most people wouldn't immediately see? A quick break to thank our three season five sponsors, ABM Orkin in Pointcore. Here's a quick message from all three sponsors. Healthcare facilities are demanding environments. Thankfully, ABM provides peace of mind with IAQ, efficient HVAC and tech-enabled predictive maintenance. Learn more at abm.com/care. Past hate us. Businesses love us. Orkin helps keep your facility ahead of past pressures with practical proven protection tailored to your needs. This episode is brought to you by Pointcore, delivering facilities and construction solutions for healthcare that help organizations strengthen performance and support exceptional care environments. And now we'll get back to the facilities and focus podcast. Compliance is patient safety even when it's invisible because patients don't see testing done. They don't see the blackflow testing, fire inspections or any monitoring of any device. That's important to be able to protect the patients. And even though they don't see it, it's a major factor in healthcare because that could potentially lead to closing a building or somebody getting hurt. It's never going to be immediate to the eye, but it's just behind the scenes that it's important that it's done. Right. And I feel like so much about facilities management is being behind the scenes. Can you just like touch on what that looks like in healthcare? Yes. So in healthcare, the goal is that we don't disturb patients, we don't disturb staff. So things are always asked to be done. Can you do it after hours? Can you do it when nobody's here? Can you come earlier? Can you accommodate us? And that makes it hard, but it's the best way to try to approach it because we don't want to be disturbing, making loud noise or making it visible that an environment is not safe. So doing all the behind the scenes makes it or at least the perspective of okay, then you're coming in to get a service, but you're not worried about watching things fall down or watching things being completed. And like, what does after hours even look like? And it's like healthcare. So it depends on the setting. For example, the work I do is outpatient services, is better qualified health centers. And after hours for us looks like doing it, work from, let's say, 10 p.m. to six in the morning, not block of time. So we have to work with technicians to work there, where plumbers, electricians, whoever the vendors you're working with is kind of trying to figure out what makes sense for them to do or there has to be the cleaning, like, floor and strip waxing. That crews work overnight. So then when you come in as a patient or as a staff, everything looks nice and ready to go. Right. Versus you having to accommodate. And sometimes it's hard to accommodate after hours. So there's times where you do have to work during business hours. And it's just being mindful of having safety cones communicating with staff, communicating with patients. That there's something we're going on trying to isolate the area. So then it doesn't affect any, any, any working operations. I know this is kind of a silly question, especially because we are in the year 2026 and we have electricity. But when you do this after hours maintenance, does the lighting have any effect on this? The buildings work as if it was during the day. And you follow the state procedures. We don't turn off the lights, turn off the water, do different things. So everything is treated in the same capacity. And it doesn't affect anything in the building. But from your perspective, what's that stake if a facility starts to treat compliance as a kind of check the box type of exercise? When you do check the box, you miss opportunities because you're just focused on the code says, do not install this 18 inches above the ceiling or the code says you have to have a two-fold clearance. So you're just you're just looking at exactly the wording and following that format versus looking at the whole picture. Sometimes you could be doing an inspection or checking the box on something. But there's other things that you're going to miss because you're so focused on just doing list by list items. What is something that is like commonly missed when it comes to compliance? The thing I see the most is communication. So people often when things are fixed or they need to be fixed, people don't always communicate effectively. And from a user, if you have issues with a light in your office, for example, you should communicate right away that that light is not working. So I could get fixed right away. And on the technician or the vendor who's fixing something, once it's complete, they should communicate back. So then communication happens with the user. So then you know that the light was checked by an electrician or by a technician. If it had an issue, it was fixed. And now you're aware and you know you're in a safe environment. So I feel that there's always gaps in people caring people when to help and do their work and safety is the most important factor. But that gets missed when people don't communicate effectively. Right. And now I feel a little cold out. You know, I'm not going to lie to you because when my son was in the hospital, he was in a QBB. There was a light in my hospital, in the bathroom of my hospital room, that just flickered the entire time I was there. And instead of staying like, hey, I think you guys need to fix this as like a facilities management journal. It should deal. I've worn it. I just ignored it. I was like, this is the least of anyone's problems right now. But like and a health care facility, you don't know what type of issues people have or medical not issues. Excuse me. Medical conditions someone may have. And something as unnecessary to me as a blinking light can have a detrimental effect on someone else. And I'll be better next time I promise. Now it gets like a flickering light could also trigger a condition if somebody has is triggered by sensors or lighting that could also be a factor in safety. So it's important and that just for for the for to see the light and create a safe environment. It could be other implications. So yeah, we learn you things everything. But I'm glad that you mentioned that communication. And I've said this a bunch of times on this podcast that people think that facilities management is a pretty solitary career choice. And I can't think of anything further than the truth. You are constantly talking to people, working with people just around people because that's just the nature of your job. How do you It's just the importance of community. to your staff. To me personally, communications, everything, because when you're working with construction, safety, patients with something that's so big, it's everybody's time and it's money, and it's not something that you could just say, "Oh, I'm sorry, because I'm sorry I could cost millions of dollars or I'm sorry I could cost lives." So it's important that to understand, for my teens to understand that, and also to understand that everybody's not in facilities. People think something gets broken and you fix it, so the reality is, anything could go wrong, and yes, you're there to fix it, but most important to create safety. And so understanding that and relating that information, that everything that my team does and people in this field do, is for to serve a purpose, and to understand that the people that we're working for essentially are customer-raised clients. They don't know how this works, so it's important they understand, "Oh yes, if you complain it's to hot in your office and the temperature gets fixed, it drops, to give them an explanation of the outside factors into the AC. When the weather changes drastically, it could be set at a certain temperature, but everything will fix it. We often get, "Oh, there's a smell of gas somewhere, and the building has no gas, but because the air has come from different areas, it could be a building next door creating a smell, and it comes this wrap." So educating and communicating what's happening, even if it's not something that you understand, then it gives you the ease of, "Okay, this is what it is, and this is what was done." And then constantly learning. I think that's a really interesting part about facilities management, because again, all the misconceptions that come with working in a trade, you don't go to school, that means that you don't have to learn ever again, and that it could be for again, further from the truth in this career. And because you're just always, like you said, finding new things, figuring out solutions. And there's always something every day and something different every day. I'm also glad that you mentioned the financial part about compliance, because I know that we don't want to think about healthcare facilities as businesses. That is what they are, though, yes, they are in the business to save you, protect you, heal you, but they also have to make money somehow. And beyond safety, what are the financial or legal consequences, organizations face when they aren't compliant? You could run into potential fines. You can see the accreditation for the services you're providing. It could impact the reimbursement you get from whatever grants or government, whatever things that you're doing. And the liability that you could have for not following the proper channels could potentially be a big issue, because they could force you to close the organization down. And so then it doesn't become a facility issue is more of an organizational risk. And then when you lose a predication, does that usually mean that the facility has to close down, or is there some type of thrust issue there that people aren't as willing to go to you? In order to provide health services, you have to follow accreditation from certain entities. And if you don't comply with those then you can legally operate. Thank you for explaining that to me. I mean, that does make sense. How do you keep up with these evolving requirements? I mean, the combination of many things, it's reading, it's going to conferences, it's connecting with vendors, it's connecting with industry professionals networking and then using the company, the internal teams compliance and risk. And so they can't hand with them. And so they understand a lot of things that need to be follow. And so using your resources to make sure that we're keeping each other informed and understanding how, how the times are evolving. So fast, I just lost my train of thought that was such a good way to put it because as you know, and when the COVID pandemic happened, things rapidly, innovative. I mentioned it here on the podcast. Otherwise, I have talked about it a lot in my personal life, if that. And the first three months of the COVID 19 pandemic, we saw three years of technological innovation. How did that kind of look from the healthcare facilities management side? And things, I think it's a plus, like trying to find resources, sharing information, having, having platforms where you could have documents, drawings that way, where all the innovation that's happening makes it easier. I think that's why people could get the resources. But at the same time, I feel that that's happening fast. And sometimes because I feel like healthcare is, it's kind of slowing the sense because there's, there's a lot of things that have that, like you said, mentioned COVID earlier, that was a change that happened in healthcare. And I just said a certain paste that I feel that when different innovations are coming, you have to kind of get with the trend and figure out how that best works with your team, with your policies and the way the culture is. So it could be, it could be good and it could be bad, but it's understanding how that has to navigate that. What kind of trends have you seen in recent years? With technology and stuff like that, I've seen more of different applications, like I said, for sharing documents that have been, that are out there to make things easier, because we're so heavy now on social media and technology in that sense. And they are more opportunities to be able to create faster environments. And for example, for like H back systems to keep temperatures and buildings, it has gone more into now you from the engineers and technicians on the team could go on their phones and adjust temperatures. And they could troubleshoot and see if there is something in the mechanisms that's not working. So that's like changing in that sense. That's interesting that you bring up the social media aspect of it. And I think a lot of people use obviously use social media for their own personal uses and just to keep connected with other people. I know a lot of people use social media to complain and how you ever had a social media response that made you improve your facility. I haven't I haven't experienced that, but I'm sure that you're like a bad guy now I will. Back back could happen, but is everybody has a unique perspective and what they bring and having different backgrounds and different experiences. I feel it's more of sharing each other's experiences. And like when you're a parent, you take what resonates with you when other parents give you advice. So I feel that in the facilities, healthcare world is the same. You could learn a lot from each other and use whatever works for your needs. What a positive way to spend that question. But to any of our listeners, if you had a social media response that made you improve your facility. And email me comment on here and I'm curious that has ever happened to people. Let me know because I think there's so much power when it comes. Now this is where I'm going to be a little bit of a zelennial, but there's so much power that comes to social media. And I think that is another tool. We talked about how AI is a tool that we need to keep an art tool about social media is one of those things too, because some people just aren't brave enough to file a grievance or actually make the complaint like you said about a combination's not being great. It takes a social media because you're more brave behind a screen. And so I mean, maybe not don't always do protect your mental health in some ways, but. Scroll look up your facilities names, see what people are saying about it and see if there are ways that you can improve it's like an informal survey. experience we haven't had so many social media. but we do get feedback through patients and staff, and we apply the feedback when received. It's important to understand everybody's perspective and anything we could do to better our buildings and our experience for everybody who enters those buildings. - What do you think is some of the biggest misconception facility managers have about regulatory inspections? That the goal is to just follow a list, like we talked about before, the checklist. The goal is let's be ready when an inspection comes. In healthcare, you could have an inspector show up at an hour from five different entities. So that's a misconception to just, instead of people think, oh, an inspector's coming next month. So it's kind of like you have a month to do everything you need to do. But the way I see things and the way I talk to my team is, we're not preparing just for an inspection. We have to be prepared every day. So we don't take it in that way. Oh, we have a month, we have two months, we have a few weeks to prepare. Every day is preparation. We wake up and we work in this industry. And our job is to create safe environments for ourselves, for our teams and for the people that come and get served. So that mindset, it's good to change, because then you're always prepared, not just for when somebody will come. - How do you go beyond your own checklist? Is there something that you always try to improve? That's not like a set standard? - Yes, so besides the regulations that are by the different organizations that are followed, I, for example, will visit sites and look at other factors or if I see, for example, a space is designed a certain way then you have your requirements, but people follow different patterns. And they might use the space differently. For example, sidewalks. You're supposed to go into sidewalks. We have people that fall because they're cutting through the landscape, because they're doing things that they shouldn't. So then when we observe these things, we look and we're like, what can we do to understand the patterns before doing, even though they're not part of a checklist or some type of regulatory item that we need to follow. So then I ask my teams, when you're on site and when you see things, take note of what that is and let's work together to try and fix things before they become a safety issue or they become a financial risk for the organization. So it's seen in a different lens where you're following, you're looking at the whole picture versus just written, written laws if you say they have to follow. - What is something that you never considered until you lived it? - People always talk about having common sense and what's common to me is not common to you. What's common to users is very different. So a lot of the things that I deal with on a day to day to me is common sense like I explain the sidewalk. If you're going through pebbles and through areas like you shouldn't and you have an accident, you kind of, that's not something that was created that way, but then it becomes now I have to fix it. So to me is everybody thinks different and everybody's common sense is not the same. So it's understanding that and thinking in that way. What could happen that in a different way? And so when I work on all my projects, I always bring up all this stuff and then they look at me and I say those things happen. So we just have to prepare before they happen. But I never thought about that until working in this field that it's just we don't it's not the same for all of us. Unfortunately, we do have to think some people are done. But the best way to live our lives, but there are some people that prove us wrong and that we have to have certain things in line. - There's people say, oh, is there a dumb question or is there anything could happen? So you just have to be prepared. - Right, because sometimes you just kind of think everybody is like a little toddler. And maybe it's because I have a two year old at home who is just like wanting to it's his first time at life. He's learning everything. He wants to test all these boundaries. That doesn't stop as you get older. Like they said, there is continuous learning in our industries and people are gonna make you learn whether he wants you or not. But what are some of the biggest challenges facility manager space and maintaining compliance across complex healthcare environments? We did talk about common sense, but what are some other issues? - People not understanding the risk. I might show up to a side and people have all these decorations all this stuff and there's not a clear path. To them, it's all I have my space in an office or in an exam room and I have said it to be welcoming to me. But then they don't think about how that becomes a safety risk. And so when I meet with people and I see something like that I explain, oh, I can say, you just can't have a like that because then it's like, oh, why can't I do that? So it's more of making them see how it connects to them and I explain if you have this item here, if I was bringing in a patient in the wheelchair, they wouldn't be able to come in and say, "Bring him out of your room." If you have this covering the door, if there's a fire, you might get trapped and somebody could die because it's that serious. So explaining things in real life events where somebody can understand, then it makes it a different outlook for those people and it's not just a bunch of rules that you're trying to follow. - Right, and like I mentioned before, this is an unforgiving job because if you mess something up or if people aren't listening to you, someone may die. And how can you ever move that over just like, one mistake because you weren't feeling like being compliant. That day, I think people's lives are worth a lot more than that. - Yes, that's why it's the hardest part is not overwhelmed. People were, "Oh, there's all these rules because they're not gonna care, there's all these rules." So it's making sure you are sharing and you're connecting to real experiences and not over-explaining it, but making sure they understand that it takes everybody to communicate, it takes everybody to do their little part to make sure we keep a safe environment. And like racing a child, it could take a village to do that. So it's the same in the healthcare world. - I think that's a really good way to put it because when you're a parent, you're in charge of these little people and you need that village to help raise that little person. And healthcare is the same way. You want people to thrive in it and you have to work together to do so. There is a reason why it's a care team that you have. - Yes. - And facilities fall in your care team. And I spent a lot of time in hospitals these last couple years. So I know how essential that role is. - Yes, and so understanding that and everybody who's in charge of keeping a building safe, if they're safe, then they could provide that care, that high quality care for when anybody comes in through the door. They're in a safe environment and they're contributing to more than the care itself, but in the environment they're at. - Right. Do you get a lot of pushback from people about this? - Yes. That's really good. - That's why I mentioned that it takes a village to do stuff because people don't understand the implications of what's, if something goes wrong, what it could cause. And they, and I don't understand why can I just do this? And it's until they get educated and they're willing to hear why. Then that risk is with them and they will not ask in the future because they understand if we can do something, it's not because I don't want to do it, it's not because somebody doesn't want to help. It's because we want to make sure they're safe and they provide that safe environment to everybody they come across. - Maybe I. I am just a pushover because if someone said it one time, like someone could die, I would always do it by the book. Even if it takes like the longest way possible, I would not be making shortcuts. But I also have sent a thousand times on this podcast. I'm a huge security cat. And so I'm also a rule follower, I guess. - No, like there's nothing wrong with you not caring about other stuff because that everybody cares about everything. But safety, buildings, everything is not just you, that affects everybody. So doing your little piece in the world, like being kind in the world, it comes a long way when we're all kind. We do little things and it's the same with safety. We do all little things. We all maintain our safety and we provide safety for others. - Right, because one day you might be a patient. - Yes. - And you don't wanna have your health at risk because someone was just feeling lazy that day. - Yes. (laughs) - So it's really important. - Yes. And then I know that we are running a little short on time. So I just have one last question for you. If you could give one piece of advice to someone and that is new in the healthcare facilities management, what would it be when it comes to compliance? I would say don't treat compliance as a task or a checklist, treat a moral of as a system and learn how everything connects, how the people, the processes, vendors, how documentation's important and building relationships early because compliance is never done and is not done alone. It takes, like I said, it takes everybody to help and do their part to continue those services. If you follow a checklist, you're done. But that's not the reality of this industry. So like I said before, it takes the village to do this. - Right. And there's nothing wrong with going above and beyond. - Yes. - But thank you so much. Do you think that is there anything else you would like to add? - No, thank you for inviting me for your time to appreciate. - Oh my gosh, thank you. - Thank you for listening to the Facilities and Focus Podcast. Facilities and Focus is a product of the facility market which houses facilities that build an operating management, facility maintenance decisions and healthcare facilities today. Thank you to our sound and video editors, Paul Ellertsson and Johnson Delopet. Thank you to Morgan Johnson for designing our logo. Thank you to Dan Wilton, Dave Lutbach, Dan Hounsel, Jeff Forden, Elaine Myers, Corralalo, and everyone else at Trade Press Media Group. And of course, thank you, Dalton, Olden, and Baby Girl. So it's a pleasure to be a part of your journey on the internet. For comments or if you are interested in being guests on Facilities and Focus, please mail me, McPennel, and FN Podcast at tradepress.com.