Facilities management, and estates and property management software specialist, Micad, says it has spent the past three years engineering and perfecting a bespoke solution for estates and facilities professionals seeking accurate information on the use of space within buildings on their estate.
The company says: “We are currently witnessing the biggest reorganisation of the NHS in a generation. Disbanded PCTs are being morphed into new Trusts, or fragments being added to a range of different providers, and the issue of space usage is now firmly under the spotlight. Although, for a generation, space in the NHS has been treated as free, i.e. if it is there and unused, users have felt free to stake a claim, this approach is now unsustainable. With the reorganisation of the national estate, the need for accurate, detailed space information has never been greater. Even where up-to-date drawings and space data are known, there is now a new set of space parameters emerging that need addressing to successfully plan a revised estate. Enter room timetabling and departmental cross charging; the notion of timetabling and charging for space is here to stay.”
Micad’s new Room Utilisation Module (RUM) is designed to enables the timetabling, booking, and departmental cross-charging of space through mapping out:
• Sessional requirements: for both recurring and non-recurring booking e.g. clinics.
• Dedicated space: e.g. operating theatres and dentists’ rooms.
• Permanently allocated space (e.g. cellular offices).
• ‘Hot desking’ / ‘hoteling’: (e.g. timetabled individual workplaces).
Using space records driven by Micad’s Internet Property Register (IPR), the RUM allows all such space requirements to be planned out for each building.
Micad says: “This immediately enables opportunity space to be identified and allocated increasing utilisation. This visibility can be viewed by the system administrator in a traditional timetable view, or even via a CAD plan, where bookings are graphically represented using colour to identify booked or non-allocated space. Bookings requested can be applied for via a simple request search that can be posted on the Trust’s Intranet. The request details are emailed directly to the accommodation managers, who can decide where to allocate space, and confirm the booking. This is an entirely automated process, requiring no site visits or phone calls.”
Bookings can include departmental charges, exceptions, and room associations, where additional space may be required at the point of booking. The RUM also caters for bespoke terms and conditions that can be set in line with the Trust’s accommodation policy, while a fully user-definable audit facility enables the ‘on-site live status’ of bookings to be checked, validated, and reported on.
Micad says: “With utilisation rates in many Trust departments below 50% and the cost of space ranging from £200-£1,200.00m2 / annum, the potential payback through greater utilisation is significant. However, it is not just through greater use and throughput of patients that space can generate increase revenue; it is also achievable via rationalisation of the estate.”
For more information, contact Micad. Email: info@micad.co.uk. T: 0161 927 9573
