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    Importance of Support Services

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    Rockson Ohene Asante
    Support services in healthcare are important for three main reasons: 1. They give nurses more time to spend with patients by taking over tasks like laundry, transportation, and communication between departments. This can save nurses over an hour per shift. 2. Support services like environmental cleaning help improve patient recovery and reduce healthcare acquired infections. 3. Investing in support service departments like linen management can significantly reduce operational costs, saving hospitals up to six figures per year. Properly funding these departments also leads to better patient experiences through reduced wait times.

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    Importance of Support Services

    Uploaded by

    Rockson Ohene Asante
    425 views5 pages
    Support services in healthcare are important for three main reasons: 1. They give nurses more time to spend with patients by taking over tasks like laundry, transportation, and communication between departments. This can save nurses over an hour per shift. 2. Support services like environmental cleaning help improve patient recovery and reduce healthcare acquired infections. 3. Investing in support service departments like linen management can significantly reduce operational costs, saving hospitals up to six figures per year. Properly funding these departments also leads to better patient experiences through reduced wait times.

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    Support services in healthcare are important for three main reasons: 1. They give nurses more time to spend with patients by taking over tasks like laundry, transportation, and communication between departments. This can save nurses over an hour per shift. 2. Support services like environmental cleaning help improve patient recovery and reduce healthcare acquired infections. 3. Investing in support service departments like linen management can significantly reduce operational costs, saving hospitals up to six figures per year. Properly funding these departments also leads to better patient experiences through reduced wait times.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    425 views5 pages

    Importance of Support Services

    Uploaded by

    Rockson Ohene Asante
    Support services in healthcare are important for three main reasons: 1. They give nurses more time to spend with patients by taking over tasks like laundry, transportation, and communication between departments. This can save nurses over an hour per shift. 2. Support services like environmental cleaning help improve patient recovery and reduce healthcare acquired infections. 3. Investing in support service departments like linen management can significantly reduce operational costs, saving hospitals up to six figures per year. Properly funding these departments also leads to better patient experiences through reduced wait times.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 5

    SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

    MASTER OF HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATION


    CLASS ASSIGNMENT BY ROCKSON OHENE ASANTE

    COURSE: SUPPORTIVE SERVICES (HA 6009)

    FACULTY: PURNIMA BHOI

    DATE: 18/11/2022

    QUESTION

    Discuss the importance of support services in healthcare


    INTRODUCTION
    Support services in healthcare refers to the services which are not directly related to patient
    care but, indirectly contribute in patient management.

    The support services have become highly specialized and evolved in the world.
    A large number of organisations are in the business of manufacturing autoclave, gas based
    sterilizer, vacuum cleaner and other equipment being used in support services
    Internationally, hospitals have recognised their importance and have established ‘state of the
    art’ CSSD, Laundry and housekeeping facilities
    They are given equal importance as to critical areas like operation theatre(OT) or Intensive
    care units (ICUs) in a hospital.

    The support service department may include;


     LINEN AND LAUNDRY
     CSSD
     Housekeeping
     Dietary and nutrition
     Blood bank
     Pharmacy
     Transport system
     Security services

    The importance of support service in healthcare can be felt in the various ways presented
    below;
    1. Give nurses more time to spend with patients
    2. Improves patient recovery and healing
    3. Reduces operational costs
    4. Improves the overall patient experience
    1. More time for nurses.
    Nurses are on overload. Support services staff can reduce the burden.
    All support departments contribute to reducing the workload for nurses. But one of the
    biggest opportunities for giving them more time is making interdepartmental communication
    more efficient.

    Take a look at some of the findings from this study by BMC Health Services.

    This chart shows the number of tasks and the type of tasks that nurses complete in a given
    hour.

    Number and type of tasks completed by a nurse in an average hour by study year (Mean =
    68.7 tasks/hour).
    On average, nurses complete 17.3 professional communication tasks every hour. And the
    number increased by more than 5 tasks per hour between year 1 and year 3 of the study.
    This next graph shows the percentage of time spent on each task.

    Professional communication tasks take up almost a 5th of a nurse's time. That’s roughly 1.7
    hours for one 8.5-hour shift.
    When it comes to communication between departments, software such as BedWatch can
    make things easier. This mobile software helps nurses quickly make requests to certain
    departments while enabling those teams to immediately respond.
    It also presents additional opportunities to reduce a nurse’s workload. One task in particular
    that can eat up a nurse’s time is transporting patients after discharge.

    2. Improved patient recovery and healing.


    Clinical care is not the only variable at play for patient recovery. Hospital support services
    should be designed to promote healing and provide excellent patient care.

    The environmental services department is perfectly positioned to help. 

    For example, COVID-19 has shed light on the importance of this department. They help
    patients and staff stay safe, not just from COVID-19, but also from healthcare-associated
    infections (HAIs).

    Improving the patient care at your hospital will require more than just clinical adjustments.
    You need to invest in your support services teams to make sure every patient gets the care
    they need and the experience they deserve.
    3. Reduced costs.

    It takes a lot of resources to run your hospital. Non-clinical departments can often be places
    where extra costs get overlooked.

    A good example is in the management of linens.

    Hospitals overuse and misuse linen every single day. Because of this, your linen program is
    one of the first places you should look when trying to save money.

    Just by installing a dedicated, knowledgeable on-site linen manager, we’ve found you


    can reduce linen usage by 26% in the first year.

    That can mean up to 6 figures in linen cost-savings.

    By overlooking your support services departments, you might be missing an opportunity to


    save a lot of money. And on top of saving you money, investing in these departments can
    have significant returns on patient satisfaction.

    4. Improved the overall patient experience.

    At the centre of your operations is the patient. Everything should revolve around them. And
    one of the biggest factors in their experience is their wait time. 

    This is directly affected by how quickly your housekeeping services team can clean and
    disinfect a room to get it ready for the next patient.

    Hospital support services are critical to your facility’s operations. Failing to properly invest in
    them results in a higher workload for nurses, unnecessary costs, and poor patient experiences.

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