Saudi experts for remote management of healthcare facilities
RIYADH, October 28, 2021
Nearly all healthcare facility managers in Saudi Arabia believe remote management and predictive maintenance are the key to streamlining operations and boosting facility management services in these challenging times.
According to a new survey by global automation major Honeywell, 94% of surveyed healthcare facility managers see remote management as a critical enabler of operational efficiency for their buildings.
The Honeywell report highlighted a growing trend towards greater adoption of connected, always-on building management systems that can enable a building to be controlled from virtually anywhere in the world, in real time.
Titled “Rethinking Healthcare Facilities as Integrated Entities,” the report is part of Honeywell’s 2021 Building Trends series, whuich presents the challenges, priorities and assessments of surveyed facility managers across the healthcare sector in Saudi Arabia, the US, China and Germany.
According to the study, 25% of surveyed facility managers currently have such a system in place, with a further 26% expecting to invest in this technology over the next 12 to 18 months.
Occupant safety and wellbeing also ranked high in priority, with more than 90% of surveyed facility managers in Saudi Arabia saying improved indoor air quality (IAQ) and life safety systems are important to attracting and retaining facility occupants.
Respondents are likely to invest in at least one of the following over the next 12 to 18 months: IAQ solutions (28%), fire detection software (28%) or aspirating smoke detection (25%), it stated.
"Connected healthcare facilities, with features such as remote management, have been shown to improve patient care, clinical outcomes and operational efficiency," remarked Abdullah Al Juffali, the country leader, Honeywell Building Technologies, Saudi Arabia.
"Facility managers in Saudi Arabia increasingly require improved indoor air quality, addressing the current heightened health and safety concerns and occupant comfort awareness," he stated.
Additionally, operational challenges amplified by Covid-19 have raised awareness of predictive maintenance as a key enabler of efficiency, with 61% of respondents more willing to invest in it today than in pre-pandemic times.
Just 30% of those surveyed currently have such a system in place, but 30% are likely to invest in this technology in the near-term and 27% will likely procure real-time tracking of people and assets to help enhance operational efficiency.
The three improvements respondents believe would provide the greatest benefit to occupants are predictive maintenance (30%), reduced downtime (29%) and better indoor air quality (28%).
Budgetary concerns also surfaced throughout the survey findings. Three in four respondents struggle with securing the financial resources to address their operational needs - an ongoing challenge for many healthcare organizations in Saudi Arabia further aggravated by Covid-19’s preemption of elective surgeries and other profitable treatments.
