Creating a Hospital Safety Plan During Times of Construction
A hospital is a high-traffic environment. This is especially true when your hospital is located in a heavily populated area. Naturally, there are going to come times when you need to disrupt the normal flow the medical facility sees. When a part of the building needs to be renovated, for example, it means you need to make some major adjustments to protocol. Since construction zones are a minefield of risks, keeping patients and personnel clear of active work sites is crucial. This is where a hospital safety plan comes into play.
By putting time and effort into devising a comprehensive plan of action regarding safety, you can make the construction process a lot less demanding on everyone involved. Consider these tips to put together a strategy that you can easily execute.
Consider the Practical Side:
To begin, you need to consider some basic points. For one, which employees are going to be the most impacted by the construction? If the wing being worked on is typically empty, then you’ll have an easier time with this. Unfortunately, it is likely you’ll need to displace employees and services for the duration of the renovations. This means you need to think about which departments will be affected and how to handle the practical challenges like finding free space and informing both staff and patients of the switch.
You don’t want to spring a change like this on anyone. Since patients tend to make appointments for specialty services far in advance, you should provide ample notice when a change is going to come. In severe cases, you may need to outright cancel some appointments for lack of space. No matter what the specifics of your hospital renovations might be, you should always start early and try to put out most proverbial fires before they burn out of control.
Discuss Safety Precautions With Contractors:
It is easy to stay on top of safety when you are communicating regularly with patients and employees. However, construction projects tend to bring many strangers into the mix. The contractors and subcontractors who enter your facility to do work can be a huge hazard to your hospital’s operations.
Before you allow any workers into your building, you need to speak with management to ensure all workers are taking proper steps before entering the medical establishment. In some cases, this might involve sanitation stations where the workers can clean up to ensure they don’t bring foreign agents into the hospital.
You also want to speak with management about their own safety precautions. If you’re using a Mason City crane service for exterior work, speak with the contracts about all of the details surrounding installation, operation, and deconstruction. No matter what services you might be using for bringing your construction project to completion, you absolutely want to understand how the company is going to tackle safety precautions. Not only does this give you the peace of mind you need, it can also go a long way to help you form your own safety plan.
Make the Information Public
While you want to let your staff and patients know about the renovations as early as possible, you also need to make a more formal announcement at some point. Hospitals usually see a lot of traffic from the street, especially if emergency services are offered. Should someone arrive with a time-sensitive ailment and discover the entrances are all blocked, it can create life-altering obstacles. Be sure to put an announcement out early and use visible signage that ushers patients in the correct direction. These little steps can go a long way to keeping the public on the same page.
Though running a hospital can be an involved and demanding job, you can always make your life easier with a bit of forethought. When the time comes for renovations, put a plan in place for how you and your people will handle the adjustments. As long as you have a strategy, you’ll be able to tackle whatever obstacles are thrown your way.
