Like many other types of properties, hospitals require maintenance over time to prevent potential wear and tear on the facilities. Hospital maintenance is particularly crucial to maintain the health of both patients and staff who might otherwise be vulnerable. However, finding the right health care facility maintenance contractor can provide a challenge, particularly if you're not entirely sure what to look for in the ideal contractor.
To help you narrow down your selection and find the best hospital maintenance contractor for your hospital, the following are some helpful tips to guide your search.
1. Provide a Thorough Brief
When looking for the right hospital maintenance contractor, you should be able to find a company that can conduct a thorough assessment of your property to determine what needs to be done. However, you should still make it clear to contractors what they should complete and prioritise. With a highly specific contract, you can make sure the contractor is responsible for completing critical tasks, including emergency maintenance.
To make sure contractors understand exactly what you're looking for, provide them with a thorough brief based on what your facility requires. This should cover everything from hospital paint maintenance to extensive repairs.
2. Be Specific With Requirements
In addition to the tasks that contractors must complete, be specific about the requirements you have in place. This will show the contractor what you continue to expect of them with each service. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities have numerous requirements regarding both maintenance and equipment to maintain a consistently safe environment for occupants.
For example, your facility may have strict requirements around PPE workwear such as masks. Additionally, you may want your contractor to provide periodic progress reports and perform ongoing quality control.
3. Exercise Due Diligence When Evaluating Contractors
You can also find the right hospital maintenance contractor by performing a degree of due diligence. For instance, you can look at online reviews of the business and see what people have said about it. Credentials such as accreditations are equally important to look for as you research the contractor. You can also check out some of the properties they currently maintain or have maintained in the past. Based on the condition they're in, you'll be able to better gauge what kind of service you can expect from the contractor.
4. Ask Plenty of Questions
You'll gain more insight into a company and its operations by asking questions when meeting with the contractor's representative. The representative might make certain claims about how it's different from competing contractors, in which case you can dig deeper. Also, the representative may mention that the company uses top-of-the-line equipment. You can then ask about the specific types of equipment and what makes it more reliable than the types that competitors use.
5. Ask About Case Studies
Taking a look at online reviews and maintained properties can give you a good idea of how reliable a contractor is, but you should also be able to view case studies. Be sure to request them, along with references detailing previously serviced clients. Based on these case studies, you can determine the contractor's rate of success.
For Expert insights on what hospital and health care facility programs are and whether you should outsource or insource your maintenance needs, read our complete guide to hospitals and health care facility maintenance.
Find the Right Hospital Maintenance Contractor for Your Facility
By taking each of these steps, you'll have the chance to locate the right hospital maintenance contractor to form a partnership with in the long term. You can weed out the contractors who don't seem up to the task or offer subpar services. Detailing what you expect, performing due diligence, and asking questions can help pinpoint the ideal company as you interview multiple contractors.
At First Response, we provide free site assessments and quotes. To discuss your options and schedule an assessment of your facilities, get in touch here.