ASHES Launches the First-Ever Industry-Wide Initiative to Establish Best Practices With NESPI

PHOENIX -- The opening ceremonies of the ASHES 2005 20th anniversary Conference and Healthcare Marketplace being held Sept. 25­29, 2005 in Phoenix, will mark the  official launch of National Environmental Services Performance Initiative (NESPI).

NESPI is the ASHES response to members and other environmental services professionals challenged  by incomplete industry guidelines for staffing day-to-day operations that guide performance and ensure  a clean and safe health care environment. ASHES has assumed the leadership role in this effort to  establish best practices through NESPI.

NESPI is an Internet survey that collects data in a confidential and secure environment using database and Web applications. The aggregate data is then compiled in real time for meaningful reports. The complete confidentiality of each participant is assured by the NESPI survey platform. NESPI provides a dynamic environment, which participants may update data on an annual basis, or as change or need dictate, with an easy-to-use graphical user interface. In this way, NESPI data will continually report current participant best practices, which other subscribers can use to establish their own performance guidelines.

"We think of NESPI as a logical extension of our 20-year history of providing education, professional training, and other support to the healthcare profession," says Thomas Fitzgerald III, CHESP, ASHES president and chief of environmental management services at VA Palo Alto California Health Care System." NESPI takes our tradition of excellence for such professional programming into the 21st century. "

Participation in the NESPI initiative is open to all environmental services managers and directors in the healthcare profession. "Our goal is to provide credible data for environmental services professionals to  share with senior management and clinicians to make data-driven decisions," explains Patti Costello, executive director of ASHES. "The benefit of the NESPI opportunity for all environmental services professionals is enormous. This initiative can help improve clinical outcomes, improve patient

satisfaction, drive efficient, cost-effective operations, and assist academic researchers, product developers and others to better serve the environmental services profession."

With the launch of NESPI, the survey will focus on staffing practices, but ASHES intends to expand the survey platform to other practices relevant to all environmental services managers.

Throughout the duration of the conference, ASHES will host on-going demonstrations of NESPI. "Based on the attendance figures for each demonstration, the response has been amazing," Costello reports. "It's clear that an initiative such as NESPI is long overdue. Environmental management needs access to accurate data, which allows them to achieve excellence in an increasingly demanding environment. This survey and the subsequent hands on tools are just another way ASHES continues to champion national best and recommended practices for healthcare environmental services." 

All environmental services professionals in the healthcare industry are strongly encouraged to participate. ASHES leadership, board, committees and staff will be calling on all environmental services managers nationwide ­- members and nonmembers alike -­ to respond to this important national survey.

Source: ASHES