In an article which first appeared in the September 2012 issue of The Australian Hospital Engineer magazine, Mark Stokoe, acting manager, Infrastructure Support, for Western Australia’s Women & Newborn Health Service and Child & Adolescent Health Service, considers how, in the light of a current decline in its use, a benchmarking tool harnessed by healthcare estates and facilities managers at some 60 Australian hospitals since its original establishment in 1996 might be revitalised, and its relevance extended, including via the launch of a new online version.

Following recent discussions with senior Department of Health Officials, IHEEM will be assisting the Department to raise awareness of the benefits of implementation of PAM (the Premises Assurance Model – HEJ, August 2010).

Recognising that many patients these days are being encouraged to exercise as part of their recovery plan while in hospital, Static Systems says its latest Fusion-IP ‘app’ allows patients to move around the hospital in safety by giving them the capability to quickly and easily summon help from staff who can accurately locate them in real time.

Writing in his most recent IHEEM President’s ‘blog’ (viewable at: www.iheempresident.wordpress.com), IHEEM’s President, Greg Markham (who recently took up a new role as technical director, EMCOR Facilities Services), says: “I’ve just returned from Bern, where I attended the IFHE Europe Council Meeting and European Congress hosted by IHS (the Institute of Hospital Engineers Switzerland).

The editor and editorial committee of the 2014 IFHE Digest are urgently seeking synopses, of around 200 words, in English, from authors considering contributing an article for the 2014 international publication.

The damning findings of the latest Francis Inquiry, headed up by Robert Francis QC, and set up to examine the deficiencies in the monitoring of patient safety and well-being at the main hospital run by the Mid Staffordshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Stafford Hospital, between January 2005 and March 2009, by the commissioning, supervisory, and regulatory bodies responsible, have been published.

IHEEM has taken the strategic decision to ‘review and revitalise’ its annual awards scheme to give the whole of the healthcare supply chain – rather than just the Institute’s members – the opportunity to participate.

Healthcare estates managers are proving to be highly receptive to a new programme of behavioural training that places participants ‘into bespoke situations that relate directly to the their day-to-day working environment’. Develop Training launched its MaTE (Managing a Technical Environment) behavioural training into the healthcare sector at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, and is rolling it out to estates and facilities managers via ‘taster’ days.

With the sustainability of UK healthcare facilities ever more in focus, the Institute was pleased to support last month’s NHS Sustainability Day of Action, at which London’s UCLH NHS Foundation Trust and the NHS Sustainability Unit encouraged NHS staff to think more about what can be done to make the NHS more sustainable (HEJ – February and March 2012).

In January 2012, three babies died from Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections in Northern Ireland and the source was traced back to the hospital water supply.

The Design in Mental Health Network (DIMHN), which is holding a special Workshop event on 9 October at this month’s Healthcare Estates event, will launch a ‘concept adult mental health bedroom’, ‘The Better Bedroom’, on its stand (D11) at the show.

A recent IHEEM seminar on water hygiene and safety, ‘The Invisible Threat’, saw John Newbold, an HM specialist inspector at the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) with experience investigating Legionella cases and outbreaks, provide useful insight into how healthcare estates engineers and other ‘responsible’ personnel could ensure compliance with the law by properly ‘managing and controlling’ Legionella risk.

Spirax Sarco has launched Spirax Rental ‘to help steam users make the energy-saving investments they need to save money and reduce their carbon footprint without delay’.

Peter Jennings, technical director for ACO Building Drainage, which specialises in the development of corrosion-resistant drainage systems and building products, looks at the key issues to consider when specifying and installing pipework and drainage for hygiene-critical environments such as hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

IHEEM has entered into an arrangement with Eastwood Park, via which candidates on the training establishment’s Foundation Degree in Medical Technologies course will, subject to their application to join the Institute being successful, benefit from having their IHEEM membership fees paid for the first two years.

Air quality “appears to have been virtually ignored” in the British Standards Institute’s (BSI) new Publicly Available Specification, (PAS) 5748, which “provides a framework for the planning, application, and measurement of cleanliness in hospitals”, a leading UK ventilation duct cleaning specialist claims.

According to Starkstrom, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) is 'arguably the greatest advance in diagnostic medical techniques to have taken place in the last century'.

Health Estate Journal reports on independent building services specialist, NG Bailey’s important role on Phase 2A of the ongoing major redevelopment of one of the UK, and indeed one of the world’s, most iconic children’s healthcare facilities, Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

IHEEM has confirmed that the seminars planned for early next year on decontamination of medical instruments, and infection/pest control (HEJ – October 2011), will both be held in February.

While the “traditional” way to measure Legionella quantitatively in water is based on a complex culture method where results can take up to 14 days, the last few years have seen the availability of very rapid real-time monitoring of the bacterium in water systems, with the development of quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), a process which gives results “within hours”.