Environmental Services (EVS) teams are imperative to the day-to-day functions of a hospital. Therefore, training and education of EVS teams should be of utmost importance. Sometimes it seems like the industry has forgotten about this extremely important department, yet there are resources out there for getting these teams in one’s organization up to snuff.
One such resource is Skill.Set.Go, a skills-driven training subscription designed for EVS teams. Powered by a team of experienced environmental service leaders and state-of-the-art designers, supported by American Hospital Association (AHA) and led by the Association for the Health Care Environment (AHE), Skill.Set.Go is a new resource for training, transforming, and retaining EVS teams.
To get more information on this new training series, Healthcare Purchasing News spoke with Monika Berrier, EdD, PMP, director, AHE Education. Berrier works at the Association for the Health Care Environment of the American Hospital Association. This non-profit organization makes every effort to establish and maintain care environments free of environmental surface contamination and support safety, service, and efficient and effective operations. As a director of education at AHE, Berrier manages a team of education specialists and instructional designers who develop and deliver in-person and virtual educational offerings, including publications, certifications, workshops, conferences, and on-demand content delivery. She also leads the delivery of the AHA's learning management system (LMS). Before joining AHE, Berrier was part of the American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE), also part of the AHA, working as an instructional design manager, managing ASHE’s extensive portfolio of in-person and virtual offerings similar to AHE’s. Berrier originally started her career in graphic design. She worked on large brands designing catalogs and books for companies like Staples, Kohl’s, True Value, and McGraw-Hills. She always worked as a designer and trainer, eventually leading to her career switch to instructional design and education.
Berrier holds a Doctor of Education (EdD) degree and a Master of Science in Educational Media Design and Technology. Both degrees significantly strengthened Berrier’s ability to deliver education strategy and helped her become a visionary leader in various areas of education. She continues to search for new ways to provide education to adult learners and constantly seeks new technologies to improve learner engagement.
Let’s start with a 40,000-foot view. Why are environmental services important to hospital systems? And why do we need to educate these folks?
In many healthcare organizations, environmental services are just cleaning people who come in, clean, and remove trash. What we’re really trying to change is the notion that you can take a person that does the same job in a hotel or another non-healthcare facility and bring them into healthcare. Individuals who work in healthcare settings need to know how to prevent infection with detailed knowledge of how bacteria and viruses thrive and exist in the environment, and that is driven by the knowledge rather than what we see. For example, cleaning and disinfection—using different agents for different areas is driven by the knowledge of the chemicals they use and their reaction. Essentially, what the bacteria, viruses, and microorganisms respond to in order to properly clean and disinfect the areas—areas like patient rooms and hallways. But then, when you're single OR, you really need to have that knowledge to make sure that the next patient that gets that room is thoroughly clean of all microorganisms that could be left behind.
Somebody who is not skilled in this particular job is really an environmental technician vs. facility housekeeping because of that extra level of knowledge that they need to make sure that the places that they leave behind are really cleaned and disinfected and are free of any microbial organisms.
And why is education important? It's not only important for technicians to know how to properly treat microorganisms and how to bring agents back to the clean areas from the dirty areas. It is also important for managers, supervisors, and directors to realize how important their job is. And then invest in training technicians and themselves [managers, directors, supervisors] to have a certain level of knowledge. CEOs of organizations should also be aware of this and consider investing in training to get their staff at the right level of education.
Can you tell us a little bit about the training subscription program?
Managers, directors, and supervisors have found the need to educate their team. They need to stay compliant, and technicians need to be trained. So, we came up with the subscription model for Skill.Set.Go. It gives the supervisors the ability to control training of the teams. They can buy one subscription that comes with two free seats (additional seats are also available for purchase).
For example, if I have a team of 10, and I have two technicians to clean the floor and two that are brand new coming up, I can, as a supervisor of the team, preview all the training because I do have those two [seats] free. They were designed to come with those [seats], so then the managers can preview what their technicians will be accessing as far as content. And then they have the ability to purchase additional seats and the ability to use the seats within the year. And then, they also not only have access to a dashboard where they can assign the trainers to technicians, but they can also upload the entire team in one click and create their accounts for them.
It seems like the subscription model is a new concept for the industry. Is this accurate?
Yes, I agree with that. I also want to point out that most training is pushed toward the supervisors and managers of these teams, which lowers the overall team productivity because they need to train. Having this subscription that is based on micro learning and very small bites allows the team to do the training in between tasks. For example, they can take 10 minutes at lunch and do some. Managers have to take people on the floor and allocate a trainer, and other training often has pages and pages of reading. And when teams are being trained this way, with binders of information, the information may not stick. Our model is making it accessible via an online portal that is available on the go. Our model also eases up the training on the manager and supervisor side who in the past would have had to train their team without software and, as we all know, they have many more responsibilities than to just teach the basics to their team.
How can managers or supervisors get c-suite or leadership support for EVS training?
It is important to invest in a training program like this and education for your staff. I think of EVs almost as unsung heroes. We need them, but I don't think we really focus on the needs of education and growing their careers in the hospital system enough. It comes down to changing the mind of leadership. Leadership really needs to realize that they have to be a learning organization and that’s how they get every department to participate and contribute to patient safety. It can start with simple moves like changing the titles of the housekeeping and janitorial department to EVS.
This department is usually the underdog, not being recognized as doing more than just cleaning. It needs to be understood that this team prevents infection; they really clean and disinfect so the next patient can enter into the room free of microorganisms.
Overall, I think the c-suite and all the leaders of organizations need to understand the why behind it. And then have the concept of a learning organization in mind—every department needs learning every day. Departments need to have that investment in training because it is going to make the hospital better. It is going to increase customer satisfaction rates and if you have happy customers in your organization then you are going to have a better business.
