Compliance survey reveals how FMs are tracking, who’s involved and how compliant they actually are
By Theresa Walsh Giarrusso
Robert Faure, Healthcare Segment Leader at ImaginIt, discussed his recent compliance survey results at the 6th Annual New York Hospital, Outpatient Facilities & Medical Office Building Summit held Sept. 25 at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
Faure conducted an online compliance survey in April 2019. It was open for two weeks. He invited FMs at healthcare organizations to participate via email and LinkedIn. There was a random drawing for gift cards for participation. Here’s what he learned:
- How do you track compliance? A mixture of techniques were used based on size. FMs reporting using digital/electronic system, binders, Excel spreadsheets and other paper-based systems. The larger the organization the more sophisticated the tracking system became.
- How many people are involved in identifying and tracking compliance issues? It appears just what one would think: the bigger the organization, the more people necessary. However, the 5001K to 1 million didn’t follow suit.
- How do you staff for compliance? The bigger organizations used vendors. The smaller organizations were hybrid but used more internal staff as a percentage.
- Where is your staff located? 0 to 999K were mostly housed in one location. One million to 5 million, were housed in multiple locations. The largest organizations had the staff in one central location.
- What are their biggest challenges? For smaller organizations: Tactical aspects of compliance such as managing and documenting corrective action (250K sq. ft. and under); Knowing location and status of compliance-related items. (251 to 500K sq.ft.) For larger organizations: Quantifying financial impact, such as identifying and tracking costs associated with correcting out of compliance issues.
- How well does senior management understand? The smaller companies had more direct contact with upper management and therefore more understanding. The larger companies reported they were less connected and had less understanding.
- How compliant are you? 65 percent reported that they were 75 to 100% compliant.