Happy New Year and Welcome to 2017!! 

Take a pause and reflect for a moment.  Did you ever think that you would see 2017?  How about where you are in your career?  As we start a new year, many of us look for new beginnings, course changes, or verify where we are going.  Somehow, the idea of a new year energizes people to set goals and make plans.

In 2017, we already realize that the dynamics of our industry are changing.  The political scene will have an impact, as will the new survey process by the accreditation agencies. Many of us are conducting daily operations, waiting for the changes to come down from the “C” Suite, and then adapt.

Through it all, as leaders, we need to keep the “main thing”, well….the main thing.  Our objective is creating a healthy environment for patients, visitors and staff who utilize our facilities.  In support of this, VSHE’s primary objective is “to advance the development of healthcare engineering”. 

The VSHE Board met in December to finalize plans for the 2017 VSHE Conference in May.  Through the Call for Abstracts, thirty-seven abstracts were submitted.  The topics were relevant for our industry and the presenters are leaders in their fields.  Thanks to all who submitted abstracts!  If your abstract was not selected for the conference, it was only due to limited space and time.

The VSHE Board has also been proactive in resolving some open-ended items and looking to the future for ways that we can enhance communications with our Membership.  VSHE now has an updated set of Bylaws that reflect our organization.  Also, VSHE is working to upgrade its social media.  Please look up VSHE on the internet and provide us feedback.  We are also on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  Please “Follow” us. Come, get involved, and help us grow.

Speaking of growth, I want to recognize our VSHE Annual Sponsors. Our annual sponsors nearly doubled from last year. We so appreciate your support: Thank you so much.  Also, our Board set a goal to break the 200 mark in membership.  To date, we have 285 members; and working toward 300 members.  This is where we need all the current members support.  Many of you know other healthcare facility management leaders and use vendors/contractors in your facilities.  Encourage them to become members of VSHE.

The VSHE Board has been working on increasing attendance at the District quarterly meetings.  VSHE is now working with Go-To-Meeting and will be using this system for future meetings.  Other opportunities are presenting themselves and I wanted to share them with you: 

1. Mark your calendars and get ready to register for the VSHE Conference, May 8-11, 2017 in Williamsburg.  Registration to the conference, exhibit spaces and conference sponsorships will be open on our website in early January:   www.vshe.org
2. Once again, the VSHE conference will host the CHC, HCC and CHFM courses, plus training sessions and a vendor show.  Topping the week off, will be our annual golf outing. 
3. The NFPA Conference is in Boston on June 4-7, 2017.  NFPA 99 and 101 are on the schedule for review.  If you are a member, please consider attending.
4. The Annual ASHE Conference will be in Indianapolis in August 6-9, 2017.  Please consider being a member with this national organization and attending.  ASHE always has a great conference.
5. Please click the link to read the ASHE Region 3 Winter Newsletter. If anyone's interested in serving as Director for Region 3, please contact Shay Rankhorn (423) 302-1037.
   

Thanks again to all VSHE members, supporters and friends.  The VSHE Board looks forward to serving you in 2017.

~Rick Sanders CHFM, CHEP
VSHE President 2016-17

Happy New Year, VSHE Members! On December 7, 2016 I attended the excellent quarterly ASHE Advocacy Webinar. The following topics were discussed:

1.  Joint Commission 2017 LS and EC Standards. On the Joint Commission there is a comparison table based upon pre-publication release. (E-version will be available 1/9/17. Print version will follow.)  Highlights 2012 NFPA 101 and NFPA 99.

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• Items in Corridor 
• Suites bigger
• Critical testing frequencies
•  Fire places
• Limited cooking facilities
•  Fire safety equipment and building features
• Annual testing and inspection of door assemblies
•  Labeling of system controls
•  Required temperature and humidity in non-critical areas 
• Annual testing of generator fuel

2.  SAFER Matrix. Most detail explanation is at the site. NOTE on January 1, 2017 Joint Commission will use the SAFER Matrix for hospitals.  

3.   CMS K-Tags. There are 52 new K-Tags. ASHE will publish a crosswalk in early 2017. 

4.  Reminder of NFPA technical meeting in June. Voting will take place on changes to NFPA 101,99 and 70E. If you are a member of NFPA please make an effort to attend and support ASHE positions. 

There is a lot of info available about the above topics on the ASHE website.  Additionally, on December 12, 2016, VSHE sent our members an ASHE Advocacy alert entitled: “Pressure Relationships between Operating Rooms and Other Areas”.  All items are explained in much greater detail on the ASHE Website.

~ Bob Reardon
 VSHE Past President

As the New Year rolls in along with new resolutions, we at VSHE are hopeful that our members also have a renewed zeal to act upon opportunities that will yield professional growth and development in the coming year.  Choosing to attend our VSHE Annual Conference in May is one of those opportunities for betterment; and it represents a huge step in the right direction to becoming an “improved version” of yourself.

The Annual Conference will provide educational opportunities with CHC, HCC and CHFM certification courses, plus training sessions and a vendor show.  Concluding the week will be our annual golf outing.  Online registration will open early January; check out our website: www.vshe.org.

We are grateful for the huge number of abstracts submitted for review for this year’s Annual Conference. It was simply amazing!  With topics specific to infection control, regulatory guidelines, energy usage, design/build project delivery, facilities management, and life safety, we really believe that there will be a wonderful variety of presentations for all attendees in our industry.  We deeply appreciate everyone who submitted an abstract.  Everyone will be contacted in the next week. Thank you for your interest and dedication.

We look forward to renewing our friendships with everyone at the Conference in May!

Thanks to each and every one of our members for being a part of our growing organization. This past year we set a goal to exceed 200 members. During our State Conference this past May, we proudly announced that this goal had been exceeded and we were well on our way towards 250 members. As we celebrated this milestone during our State Conference this past May, we received feedback from many of our members that they wanted to become more involved in VSHE. Contact a member of your district leadership team to share your thoughts and ideas for upcoming events.

Your feedback will help us plan ways to make our organization even stronger and more beneficial to our members. (See our website for the names/email of our District Leadership Team members: www.vshe.org)

Regards!
~ Jerry Baker
VSHE Membership Chair
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Happy New Year!

As we move into 2017, keep your eyes peeled for several opportunities for collaboration within the Blue Ridge District leading up to the annual conference in May. We thank you for your support and participation. Best wishes to you and yours for a prosperous new year!

Best,

~ Dylan C. Henderson
VSHE Blue Ridge District 2016-2017 Chair

VSHE is on the move! We are seeing good membership and sponsor numbers. This just goes to show that we have good people and good training. Keep up the good work.

The next VSHE annual conference will be held May 8-11, 2017 in Williamsburg. Conference registration will open in January.

The next Central District meeting will take place on November 17 at 2-4 pm. This meeting will take place at the Trane office in Richmond. You will see emails and invitations soon. This meeting will be consist of leadership and the new CMS rule for Emergency Preparedness.

As you know, I am mentioning leadership more and more as part of the Central District updates and meetings. The leadership portion will show a video from TEDtalks. This 13 minute video discusses how leaders need to and can lead in times of change.

Also, the VSHE website has been updated to reflect more accurate information. The VSHE Board is working to make this site a resource of reliable information for our group.

As I tell people, “we are not just mechanics anymore”. We as a group design, build and maintain millions of dollars of equipment and infrastructure. The ‘old Plant Ops guy’ has crawled out of the boiler room and now controls big equipment by typing data into a computer. Reach out to your comrades in our field and encourage them to join us in our quest to better the healthcare environment. 

If you or someone you know would like to help plan, organize or be involved with any of the VSHE events, feel free to contact me for information. I am also open to suggestions on topics for quarterly meetings.

Respectfully,

~ Joe Auricchio, BS, CHFM
VSHE Central District Chair
(804) 828-6308

Happy New Year, Hampton Roads!

Welcome to the challenges that this year will bring; and may you embrace the joy that comes from doing incredible work to impact patient care through your maintenance to the Physical Environment. If you’ve been following ASHE and VSHE, then you’ve noticed that the Physical Environment is gaining attention, it’s getting talked about more, and our opportunities to impact patient care have never been greater. With opportunity comes the deep responsibility to manage our resources, our capital funding, our construction projects, and our staff. I can assure you that many of these topics are on the docket for educational sessions at our upcoming May 2017 VSHE Conference. Watch your emails for the updates, and be sure to register for the conference, as well as any professional education courses offered to assist in gaining your credentials.

Speaking of education, are you eligible for any Tuition Assistance through your employer? Are you pursuing any continuing educational opportunities to enhance your readiness for the next level? These are important questions to ask yourself as you rise into leadership roles. Being involved with ASHE and VSHE exposes the Healthcare Facility Manager to the latest trends we’re seeing across the country, and one trend is that education is becoming more and more valuable to the C-Suite. Reaching out to community colleges, trades schools, and universities is the first step to achieving higher education. A past VSHE member is now the program manager of the very first “Healthcare Facilities Leadership” associates degree at Owensboro Community and Technical College. Get started today, and use any tuition assistance your employer offers – its money in your pocket if you use it.

Speaking of money, have you been working on any energy savings initiatives for your facility? A recent article in Healthcare Facilities Management magazine mentioned that according to the J.P. Morgan white paper, “Energy Performance Contract Financing as a Strategy: Transforming Healthcare Facilities Maintenance”, both public and private hospitals have worked hard to control their operating costs in the face of thinning margins, an uncertain economy and a challenging regulatory environment. As a result, many organizations face difficult decisions between maintenance and infrastructure improvements, while assuring quality patient care. Your Central Utility Plant is high on the list of the complex components of your hospital’s infrastructure. Combining the immediate benefits of energy-efficiency upgrades to existing systems with an investment in new and reliable on-site energy infrastructure provides compelling financial, operational and environmental benefits (HFM, 2017).

Likewise, from a planning and logistics vantage point, communications, coordination and planning are important throughout any renovation. However, the challenges facing building owners and facility executives [planning a renovation] are magnified on a health care campus. Specifically, infection control, utility loads, switchovers, service to physicians and patients, and the impact of design on existing facilities and activities all are critical issues that must be addressed in the health care environment. Coordination of new and existing MEP as well as tie-in with the existing facility structure is critical due to the multitude of systems that have to be rerouted for new construction. Rerouted systems include normal power, emergency power, steam, pumped condensate return, chilled water supply and return, domestic water, storm, sewer, fire sprinkler, nurse call, data, telephone, paging, and distributed antenna and cable TV (HFM, 2017). It’s obvious that our work in healthcare puts us in front of just about everything patients and staff use to create a relaxing, healing, and comfortable physical environment. If you work in healthcare facilities management, be a member of your state’s chapter of ASHE, and you’ll be in touch with professionals dedicated to helping you achieve your professional goals and help you learn best practices. 

~ Robert Richards
VSHE Hampton Roads District Chair
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Happy New Year, VSHE Members!

Our VSHE Team spent the better part of 2016 developing our new, improved VSHE website and our new social media outlets! We are excited for all of our members (and prospective members) to check it out:

November and December 2016, we launched our Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. Please make sure you “Join, Like and Follow” us on all of our social media platforms. You can find or search for us using the name Virginia Society of Health Care Engineers, or www.vshe.org.

Our new social media platforms allow us to bring immediate awareness to our ever-changing and fast-paced industry. Please share any new and exciting updates via our social media outlets.

Also, take a closer look at the RESOURCES section on our website. We have a spot for JOB POSTINGS. Send us any info you have on your employment needs and we will add it to our website.

Please do not hesitate to email us with your thoughts and feedback.

~Brandon Galbreath
VSHE IT Chair

Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season. Winter is here!

RE-CHECK your SNOW PLANS!!! 

We also want to welcome the new Membership Chair for the Hampton Roads District: Debra Dowden-Crocket, a Senior Development and Solutions Manager with Centennial Contractors Enterprises. Please reach out to Debra (debra@cce-inc.com) about becoming involved in your Hampton Roads District.
ANNUAL SPONSORSHIPS
Our VSHE Annual Sponsorships for 2016-2017 have exceeded our 2015 sponsorships. Thank you! Please go online HERE and renew your sponsorship for 2016-2017. New annual sponsorships run from September 1, 2016 to August 31, 2017.
Our Annual Sponsors for 2016-2017 are:
Platinum Sponsors:
Air Conditioning Equipment Sales, Inc. ACES AKF Group Engineers Atlantic Constructors, Inc. Barton Malow C & C Electrical Service, Inc C&W-Tesco, Inc. Centennial Contractors Clark Nexsen Creative Maintenance Solutions, LLC Currin Design Consulting D + H Construction Services, Inc. Davis Construction Dewberry	Dunlap & Partners Engineers Dusty Ducts, Inc. ECS Mid-Atlantic EMC Mechanical Services EXCEL Energy Consulting HF Lenz Company HGA Architects and Engineers Hitt Contracting Howard Shockey & Sons, Inc. JLL Johnson Controls KOP Architects Leach Wallace Associates, Inc	MB Contractors Midwest Firestop, Inc. Noelker and Hull Associates, Inc. Perkins+Will PF&A Design Skanska USA SRC, Inc. The Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. Trane Turner Long Construction, Inc. W. E. Bowman Construction, Inc. York River Electric Inc.
Gold Sponsors:
AEGIS Fire Safety Consultants	Cornerstone Architects PLC	Emerald Construction Company
Silver Sponsors:
Dunbar Milby Williams Pittman & Vaughan, PLLC	Phoenix Data Systems, Inc.
~ Lynne Manning VSHE Communications Chair
BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR 2016-2017:
2016-2017 State Board of Directors Elected

More than 3,200 professionals gather on-site each year to get vital information on health care compliance, codes and standards updates, emerging trends, and best practices for efficiency, sustainability, emergency preparedness, and other pressing topics in the field. Attend the ASHE Annual Conference and Technical Exhibition to connect with colleagues in the field and "reach new heights" in your role as a health care facility management professional.