This article was originally published in TechNation. Hospitals—and healthcare technology management (HTM) departments within them—have faced more than their fair share of challenges in recent years. Between the pandemic, growing cyber threats, staffing shortages, budget constraints (and the list goes on and on), challenges abound. But for small to mid-sized (SMB) hospitals—especially those that are not part of a health system—these one-two punches have hit even harder. Most smaller hospitals, especially those in rural areas, are facing severe budget constraints due to supporting an older, poorer population, while at the same time facing declining Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements. This is exacerbated by the fact that many of these hospital facilities are aging themselves and have older equipment that needs more maintenance. These economic pressures have forced approximately 180 rural hospitals to close their doors in the past 17 years. Regardless of the added challenges that these smaller HTM departments must overcome, they still have the same clinical, operational, and regulatory responsibilities as their larger counterparts. Smaller HTM organizations have become very resourceful at keeping old equipment functioning and making do with less, while still providing their hospitals with exceptional support. This sometimes means having to manage their clinical equipment using outdated CMMS applications, spreadsheets, and even paper work orders, which creates additional work for staff members already stretched too thin. How The Connected Workplace for Healthcare SMB Solution Helps With this need in mind, Nuvolo developed and introduced Connected Workplace for Healthcare SMB, an economical computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) designed specifically for small to mid-sized hospitals and equipment service providers. Unlike the flagship Nuvolo CMMS solution (Connected Workplace for Healthcare, which is designed to meet the needs of larger, more mature1 HTM organizations and thus takes longer to configure and implement), the new SMB solution comes fully configured on the ServiceNow platform to meet the modern needs of smaller HTM departments and service providers. The responsibilities of all HTM and healthcare facilities departments—regardless of their size—have evolved over the years. These departments aren’t just responsible for maintenance anymore, and therefore their CMMS needs to do so much more than maintenance. Now smaller organizations can afford a robust, modern CMMS that supports the work they do. Some key capabilities of Nuvolo Connected Workplace for Healthcare SMB are: Enterprise asset management capabilities Work order ticketing and management User-friendly planned maintenance Parts and warehouse procurement functionality A mobile application for technicians Vendor management capabilities “Our goal when we developed the SMB offering was to give smaller hospitals the tools and functionality they need in their CMMS to be a high-performing HTM department and all that entails,” says Kristy Tupper, Nuvolo General Manager for the SMB solution. “SMB is pre-configured, so it’s as close as you can get to ‘plug and play’ in a CMMS. This allows us to make the system affordable to even the smallest hospitals while still being able to provide them with a world-class solution.” Benefits of Connected Workplace for Healthcare SMB include: Fast implementation: Get up and running in weeks, not months. Automatic software upgrades: Customers automatically receive product enhancements and are always using the latest version of the solution. Easy set up: The solution is easy to implement, needing only minimal configurations to get started. Ability to scale: As your HTM organization grows and matures, you can easily scale up to meet your evolving needs. Explore the full SMB solution to learn more. 1Mature HTM organizations are those described in AAMI’s HTM Levels Guide (third edition) as Level 3, 4, or 5. Share
