Case Study
Guiding and Navigating Complex Healthcare Program Standardization
Situation
Keeping hospitals and healthcare buildings sanitary to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 has been no easy task for any health system. St. Luke’s University Health Network (St. Luke’s) in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, encountered a challenge in performing routine cleaning of frequently touched surfaces in more than 300 ancillary offices while coordinating service with over thirty outsourced environmental services (EVS) vendors.
To consolidate EVS vendors and develop a stronger quality-control process, St. Luke’s collaborated with Berkeley Research Group. After experiencing numerous network acquisitions across the health system, St. Luke’s ancillary locations had expanded to over 300 sites with more than thirty EVS vendors. Often, these new acquisitions inherited cleaning contracts from previous building tenants. Without centralized management, St. Luke’s individual practice managers had to determine the cleaning frequency and scope for each respective location. This resulted in large inconsistencies in service across similar practices throughout the entire health system, with limited oversight in place to establish a standard practice process by office type.
Specific initiatives to address the situation included:
- Standardize and enforce the scope of services across all practices and locations
- Improve quality and consistency through the consolidation of cleaning vendors
- Create geographical regions and assign to vendors
- Utilize pricing guidelines based on scope, frequency, and square footage for new acquisitions as the health network expands
- Leverage portfolio to achieve price concessions