The Association for the Healthcare Environment (AHE) of the American Hospital Association invites those interested in presenting at its EXCHANGE 2017 to submit a proposal for review by the Conference Planning Committee.
Important Dates:
• November 30, 2016: Call for Presentations Opens
• January 6, 2017: Call for Presentations Ends
• March 3, 2017: Notification of Approval
• September 17-22, 2017: EXCHANGE 2017 in Orlando, FL

AHE has started this initiative to encourage professionals in the field to begin, or continue to refer to the departments and the personnel caring for the healthcare environment as environmental services professionals rather than as housekeepers, janitors and custodians. The staff and management teams responsible for maintaining the clinical environment of care require different skills and competencies from those needed in the commercial cleaning and general maintenance industry and it's time we address this critical distinction.

Please help us redefine healthcare environmental services!

The Association for the Healthcare Environment (AHE) of the American Hospital Association invites those interested in presenting at its EXCHANGE 2017 to submit a proposal for review by the Conference Planning Committee.
Important Dates:
• November 30, 2016: Call for Presentations Opens
• January 6, 2017: Call for Presentations Ends
• March 3, 2017: Notification of Approval
• September 17-22, 2017: EXCHANGE 2017 in Orlando, FL

AHE has started this initiative to encourage professionals in the field to begin, or continue to refer to the departments and the personnel caring for the healthcare environment as environmental services professionals rather than as housekeepers, janitors and custodians. The staff and management teams responsible for maintaining the clinical environment of care require different skills and competencies from those needed in the commercial cleaning and general maintenance industry and it's time we address this critical distinction.

Please help us redefine healthcare environmental services!

Jeff Ferenc, Health Facilities Management
Louisiana Veterans Health Care System hospital meets patients’ needs in a highly resilient facility.

Ian M. Shapiro, facilitiesnet.com
Conventional energy improvements save energy, but often only for the length of the product life. For example, a high-efficiency light bulb might only last for a few years, and then be replaced with a low-efficiency lamp, and the energy savings are lost.

Heather Larson, CleanLink
Management at United Services Group, Brampton, Ontario, Canada, had heard about Internet of Things–enabled floor machines that could solve the problem of disappearing equipment.

Jamie Morgan, Health Facilities Management
A well-designed health facility should be somewhat inconspicuous. Whether it’s the bright vibrancy of a children’s hospital or simple comfort found in a community clinic, the layout, color scheme, materials and various architectural and interior design components that make up the building should be so well-integrated that its impact is felt more than it is seen.

CleanLink
When one thinks of a hospital, he or she likely pictures a clean and sterile environment, with medical staff dressed in pure white moving through rooms that smell of antiseptic and bleach.

Infection Control Today
An experimental Ebola vaccine was highly protective against the deadly virus in a major trial in Guinea, according to a new study that included researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM).

ContagionLive
As the year draws to a close, the mumps outbreak of 2016 will go down as the largest in the United States in a decade, as communities across the country continue to report new cases.

Tom Bergin, Healthcare Facilities Today
With flu season peaking between December and February, now is an opportune time for healthcare facilities to strengthen best practices and implement new measures to combat infection and contamination.

W. Eric Martin, CleanLink
To ensure that the right chemicals are being used the right way, Hicks advocates for management to train their staff to act not as sanitation workers, but as infection prevention specialists.

Jay Van Bavel and Dominic Packer, Harvard Business Review
Although leaders are concerned with collective success, most organizations—from sports teams to universities to global companies—still focus on rewarding individual performance.

David Slocum, Forbes
The past year has yielded another outstanding and helpful store of books for creative business leaders. Here are the Creative Leadership Book of the Year and the rest of the 2016 Top 10.

By Carl Solomon Sr., MBA, FAHE, CHESP

By Carrie Schuster

By Walter Vernon

By Cindy Nuesslein, RN, MBA, FACHE

The AHE Seal of Review and Recognition Program is designed to be a comprehensive review and formalized recognition process aimed at assisting healthcare professionals in selecting training and in-service programs that promote quality, safety and the most favorable outcomes for the healthcare environment and its related disciplines.

We need YOU! AHE is gathering input from environmental services departments across the country to identify baseline staffing productivity standards. The results of this data gathering will be used in building staffing models and providing metrics for environmental services directors. You can be a key player in identifying and establishing these important staffing criteria for our industry.

To acknowledge the ongoing and outstanding sustainability efforts of healthcare facilities - and environmental service departments in particular - the AHE presents the Environmental Sustainability Certificate Program. This program not only provides guidance on efficient, effective and value-added environmentally sustainable healthcare operations, but also provides it in such a way that is achievable within all budgets.

We need YOU! AHE is gathering input from environmental services departments across the country to identify baseline staffing productivity standards. The results of this data gathering will be used in building staffing models and providing metrics for environmental services directors. You can be a key player in identifying and establishing these important staffing criteria for our industry.