Collaborate to strengthen healthcare facility budgets

Under the traditional budget process, the FM team at a particular facility may have no input into their budget and may not even know what their budget is unless a problem arises. As a result, the FM team may have little control over prioritizing equipment repairs and replacements, or allocating funding to new hires or training.

For example, when FM teams are excluded from the budgeting process, the CFO may not allocate adequate funding to deferred maintenance. As the deferred maintenance backlog begins to mount, the result is spiraling expenses—and compliance risks—as equipment that has not been properly maintained malfunctions or fails altogether. Multiply the impact across an entire healthcare network of numerous facilities, and exposure to unanticipated patient and financial risk is inevitable.

In some cases, the CFO of a particular facility, or for the system as a whole, may be far removed from daily FM operations and not fully aware of daily FM pressures. Siloed facilities operations make it difficult to identify and prioritize essential capital investments across a healthcare network, capture volume-driven purchasing discounts, and adopt leading FM practices—such as preventative maintenance—that reduce costs and risk while improving patient outcomes.

The steady flow of healthcare organization mergers and acquisitions has further exacerbated the challenge of facilities budgeting. Following multiple mergers, a healthcare organization may lack a centralized source of data about facilities spending or projected capital needs. Different facilities may use completely different FM work-order management systems and budgeting approaches, making it difficult to compare facilities budgets against systemwide or industry benchmarks.