Safe water carries a two-fold benefit. There’s the top priority: clean water, free from the threat of dangerous waterborne pathogens that can cause sickness and even death. But then there’s the secondary benefit: savings that can help you more closely manage your budget and remain a good steward of your non-profit’s bottom line.
Savings and risk reduction go hand in hand. A strong water management plan supports your CMS compliance efforts and so much more. Let’s take a closer look at how creating a better water management plan right now can help you save your hospital’s money tomorrow, and every day after.
1. Your equipment will run longer and better. Scale, corrosion or oxygen pitting in your chiller, boiler or cooling tower system can put your facility at risk of equipment inefficiency and even failure. Planning for routine system maintenance, proper seasonal care and scale management can not only help your equipment last years longer, it can help it perform with efficiency that saves thousands of dollars in utility bills every year.
2. You’ll avoid costly settlements and remediation caused by Legionella. Like routine auto maintenance can prevent catastrophic brake failure, routine water system service helps prevent deadly Legionella outbreaks. When you develop a strong water management plan, you’re taking the steps to activate a strong defense of your valuable water system. There’s no way to detect Legionella in your water system except regular testing, which can help you identify and shut down bacterial growth before it becomes an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that can cost loss of life and millions in remediation and legal action.
3. You’ll increase compliance, and decrease time and money spent correcting issues identified by inspectors. As a CMS-regulated facility, you’re required to have a water management plan. A good plan can help you not only stay safe, but also meet compliance requirements of CMS and ASHRAE-188. Make sure you account for everything: potable water monitoring, secondary disinfection systems, cooling tower disinfections, physical cleanings, lay-ups and documentation. Your next CMS inspection will go smoother and you’ll decrease the likelihood of needing to spend time and money correcting issues identified by inspectors. You may even find yourself among those facilities that pass inspection with no citations.
If you don’t have a water management plan — or haven’t opened yours up in months — now’s the time. Need help with yours? Our expert, nimble team can help. We’d love to talk.
