Which ISO guideline or system is relevant for Hospitals?

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pancho-2007

Ok I need major help... I worked in a automotive manufacturing plant for several years in the Quality Control Dept as a Tech, so I am MORE then familiar with ISO, QS, TS, and all that jazz. I wrote several work instructions for calibration, testing, process for the company I used to work for. For 2 years now I have not worked there, I shifted gears and went home to heating/ac and maintenance in a Medical Center Complex, recently from my boss there has been talk that the Hospital wants to go ISO and of course my boss asked me to help. So my question is.... What type of ISO guideline is for Hospitals? The major differences between it and the automotive that I did for years? Basically where do I start? I do maintenance and you can imagine my thought process right now of Holy Cow we do plumbing, chillers, boilers, construction, med gas, and so I'm going I need work instructions for ALL that which would be a year of writing how to unstop a drain!! That's just for the Maintenance crew... what bout the office policies? HELP?? Where do I start?
 

Stijloor

Leader
Super Moderator
Re: Hospital ISO?

Ok I need major help... I worked in a automotive manufacturing plant for several years in the Quality Control Dept as a Tech, so I am MORE then familiar with ISO, QS, TS, and all that jazz. I wrote several work instructions for calibration, testing, process for the company I used to work for. For 2 years now I have not worked there, I shifted gears and went home to heating/ac and maintenance in a Medical Center Complex, recently from my boss there has been talk that the Hospital wants to go ISO and of course my boss asked me to help. So my question is.... What type of ISO guideline is for Hospitals? The major differences between it and the automotive that I did for years? Basically where do I start? I do maintenance and you can imagine my thought process right now of Holy Cow we do plumbing, chillers, boilers, construction, med gas, and so I'm going I need work instructions for ALL that which would be a year of writing how to unstop a drain!! That's just for the Maintenance crew... what bout the office policies? HELP?? Where do I start?

Hello Pancho,

When you say "hospital", what exactly is going to be included in the scope of registration? You need to set up a meeting with the major players, hospital administration, medical staff, etc., and find out what their expectations are. Many hospitals are accredited by the Joint Commission, so that may come into play as well. My suggestion would be to "scope out" the project first. Once you have a better handle on all this, you need to do some research on medical facilities that have already implemented an ISO 9001 based quality system. Your experience with the automotive industry is going to be helpful. Hospitals can benefit from "lessons learned" in that industry. Please keep us posted on your progress and keep sending questions.

Stijloor.
 
P

pancho-2007

Re: Hospital ISO?

Yeah they want to do this along with Joint Commission... I dont think they really know what they are doing as far as managment.. so I have to ask for the maintenance dept.. right now.. where to start as far as there?
 
D

Duke Okes

Re: Hospital ISO?

This is a tremendous learning opportunity, and should be fun. Think of all the customer-supplied product (e.g., body-fluid samples, babies ...).

Hospitals are no different than automotive companies. They have customers (e.g., patients, physicians, ...) and need to understand what their customers want and whether or not they can provide these services according to contractual requirements. They have suppliers (e.g., physicians, medical equipment companies , ...) and need to ensure they specify their needs to these suppliers and monitor how well these needs are being met. They have many, many processes.

One of the keys is that hospitals are more a knowledge-based environment than a traditional manufacturing environment, which means that the expertise of physicians, nurses, etc. is very important, rather than the work intructions you would expect to find on an assembly line. In the engineering/maintenance area it is also the same, whereby I would expect that the personnel doing the work are highly skilled, and don't need a lot of procedures. "What" maintenance, versus "How."

Just step back and understand the ISO standard at a generic level and interpret it for the hospital environment. And as someone said, be clear about the scope of registration before you even start.
 

Sidney Vianna

Post Responsibly
Leader
Admin
What type of ISO guideline is for Hospitals?
There are hospitals that use ISO 9001 and 14001 as guidance for their Q&E MS's. In terms of QMS, the most appropriate ISO Guidance document is ISO International Workshop Agreement (IWA) 1, Guidelines for process improvements in health service organizations

Check these 2 threads: http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=18924 & http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=14174

And keep in mind that infrastructure maintenance is just one small subset of the ISO 9001 standard.
 
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