Maintenance Standards for Critical Areas in Victorian Health Facilities
The Maintenance Standards for Critical Areas in Victorian Health Facilities document provides a set of general and additional maintenance standards that can be applied to all critical areas in hospitals and health services. Critical areas are defined using the risk categories (categories A and B) previously described in the department’s ‘Cleaning standards for Victorian health facilities 2009’.
IHEA Maintenance Standards User Group
The Vic/Tas branch has established a usergroup to provide feedback to the Department of Health on the contents of the standards. The department intends the standards to be a living document and intends for a review to occur around mid to late 2011.
Terms of Reference
To review the Department of Health (DoH) 2010 Maintenance standard without prejudice with the aim to improve the documents initial and ongoing implementation.
- To develop and maintain the DoH Maintenance 2010 standard by providing technical feedback to the DoH for subsequent revisions.
- To facilitate the open exchange of information across all Victorian health services engineering/maintenance departments.
| Membership: |
IHEA members | |
| Duration of Meetings: |
60 minutes | |
| Frequency: |
4 weekly | |
| Duration: |
Ongoing | |
| Quorum: |
Half membership plus one. | |
| Reporting To: |
Department of Health Safety, Quality and Patient Experience Branch | |
| Reporting Mechanism: |
Minutes / Action Sheet |
Maintenance Standards Aims and objectives
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To clarify, standardise and formalise minimum standards and requirements for the maintenance of building services such as air conditioning and ventilation systems in high risk patient areas within health facilities. -
To increase efficiencies and articulate lines of responsibility for health facility maintenance departments.
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To enhance the reporting capacity of health facility maintenance departments on compliance and validation.
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To increase health facility maintenance departments' contribution to internal quality improvement reports and processes
Inadequate maintenance of critical areas affects patient safety by posing an infection control risk. Such a set of maintenance standards contributes to patient safety and to continuous quality improvement processes. A process of auditing against the maintenance standards and timeframes for action are described. A summary of audit outcomes, for example a variance report detailing any problems identified and corrective action taken, can be used to provide a clear measure of current status to health service manages via, for example, a health service’s infection control committee or quality and safety committee
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