Authors (including presenting author) :
SZETO SY(1), WONG CS(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Property Management and Supporting Services Department, United Christian Hospital
Introduction :
The demand of cleansing service for clinical areas, departmental areas and public areas was very high in United Christian Hospital, especially during winter surge period. Cleansing team was frequently required to provide cleansing service after receiving call from user departments. Users always commented the arrival time of cleansing team to provide terminal disinfection was long.
To align with Strategies for Improving Service Quality of HA, the Supporting Services Department has formed a team of Designated Squads, converted from a team of workmen, to work as supervisors to enhance, monitor and improve quality of cleansing service of designated zone.
Objectives :
1. To reduce arrival time of terminal disinfection
2. To enhance service quality and efficiency of cleansing service
3. To facilitate communication between cleansing team, transportation team and user departments
Methodology :
In order to have a better control on service demands, 4 designated squads with 5 Operation Assistant II were formed to manage 4 designated zones, namely Upper Floor in Block S, Lower Floor in Block S, Block P and Block Q and Others Area.
Administrative team had arranged their job responsibilities, which consists of 1) providing hands on service to user departments, 2) enhancing daily communication with user departments and 3) providing proactive inspection. One squad team would be deployed from 10 am to 7 pm to cope with the service peak hour of cleansing duties in addition of duties A and P.
Users would contact responsible squad at designated phone number for enquiries or follow-up on cleansing issues. The responsible squad would provide immediate solution and improved measures. Each squads would also conduct “surprised check” on the supporting services to maintain the service quality.
Result & Outcome :
After forming the special squad team, the performance pledge of terminal disinfection (Arrival time below 30 minutes) was continuously improving, from 81.8% in May 2019 to 93.4% in November 2019. This could expedite the turnover of hospital beds to meet the service demand especially during winter surge. Positive feedbacks were received from users on the quality of cleansing service. Furthermore, users expressed their appreciation that special squad team that they had carried out proactive inspections and actively communicated with users.