Enhancing Maintenance Efficiency and Patient Safety With CMS View

Tift Regional Medical Center, a division of Southwell and located in Tifton, Georgia, has fostered a culture of patient safety that stands out amongst other hospitals in South Georgia thanks to its use of FSI’s breakthrough product, CMS View. This mobile application, part of FSI’s Custom Maintenance System (CMS) suite of CMMS products, allows Tift Regional to maintain 100% compliance through more efficient preventive maintenance management, work order completion, and location features.

Tift estimates assets are located 40% faster with CMS View, allowing work orders, PMs, and inspections to run smoothly. See how CMS View has become an indispensable tool for the facilities team at Tift Regional to maintain patient safety and ensure the highest levels of productivity and maintenance completion.

From PMs on paper to cutting edge software

Before adopting FSI’s CMS as their CMMS solution in 2016, Tift Regional tracked work orders and PMs on “a wing and a prayer,” as described by Robert Setters, Plant Operations Manager at Tift Regional.

“Before CMS and CMS View, we struggled to keep track of work orders on pieces of paper and a thick book of PMs and assets. Now we have each one documented and accounted for on the app,” Robert explained.

CMS View enables technicians to locate work orders and PMs directly on a digital floor plan using a mobile device, saving technicians an average of 3 minutes per asset/work order to find.

Particularly useful for assets related to fire safety, CMS View is utilized by several departments to ensure all assets are documented and accounted for. Tift went through life safety drawings, for example, and created assets for all the firewalls, as well as fire extinguishers and alarms, labeling them so technicians could locate and complete a PM.

“If a fire extinguisher is missing from a location, the technician can see directly on the floor plan where one should be,” Robert mentioned. “Without View, we’d have no idea an asset was missing.”

With approximately 300 fire extinguishers at Tift, CMS View allows a level of visibility and documentation that simply could not be achieved with paper and books alone.

Improving patient safety and compliance

During inspections CMS View cuts time for inspectors and vendors to locate hard-to-find assets, like fire dampers and other above ceiling equipment. The time savings afforded by CMS View are essential to maintaining patient safety, as every minute counts to restore compliance in emergency situations.

One of the most consequential times CMS View had a direct impact on patient safety was when Robert’s team used View to quickly identify which of the 150 exhaust fans on the roof of the building above the isolation rooms had stopped working. When technicians were alerted that a patient isolation room had fallen out of compliance, every second counted to remedy the situation.

“Without View we would have to check each fan one by one, or go to the fans that typically give us the most trouble,” noted Robert. “But with View, we could quickly and easily locate exactly which fan needs attention and resolve the issue.”

Another core feature of CMS View that is critical for the speed and efficiency of preventative maintenance and work orders is the ability to order parts and bring the necessary equipment to the work order site by checking the asset record in View ahead of time. Without this system, a technician may approach a work order without knowing exactly which parts are needed for the repair.

“Our technicians can see ahead of time which belt size they need to repair that fan, for example, and arrive at the site ready to make the repair,” Robert emphasized.

Best practices and lessons

“CMS View is a solution any healthcare facilities can and should implement, particularly if they struggle with maintaining compliance, tracking assets, and documenting PMs,” Robert believes, frequently sharing his experience using the product at regional events for facilities and clinical engineering.

To others considering using CMS View, Robert suggests that diligently ensuring the asset information is complete and accurate allows you to get more out of the system.

“I’d suggest having someone own View to make sure you’re taking advantage of everything it has to offer. Without keeping the software up to date with team members owning the initiative, then you risk inaccurate and incomplete data, which significantly reduces the effectiveness of CMS View’s capabilities and features,” Robert added.

CMS View has greatly advanced the way Tift maintains compliance and performs preventative maintenance, streamlining safety measures and enabling technicians to perform PMs faster and more easily.

“Above all else, CMS View guarantees we never fall behind. It allows us to keep work orders and PMs up to date as technicians perform tests and retests. We can always stay ahead, and the faster staff can get accurate data and solve a problem, the better.”