Petra was recently engaged to provide Medical Equipment Planning Services for the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) during their recent $38 million renovation and expansion projects. Our team, led by Susan Harman managed the remodel and re-instatement of 19 Pediatric Intensive care beds, and that involved maintaining detailed room reports and equipment specifications, creating and tracking of budgets, managing all deliveries and installations, and assisting with OSHPD documentation for fixed equipment.
The Medical Equipment Planning team at Petra is especially gifted in considering all aspects of a physical space to create better outcomes for our clients and ultimately the patients they treat. This means crossing every single T and dotting every I – leaving no stone unturned along the way. These types of services are typically an added expense incurred by the hospital for a project like this, but when you partner with Petra, it’s just another included bonus along the journey of “Creating Better” together.
In this project, we acted as an advisor to CHLA stakeholders from clinical teams to facility support and provided our unique set of services to ensure the clients would have everything in place for a smooth transition into licensing and using these new spaces. We interacted with various departments prior to licensing including:
Biomedical Engineering
Beyond providing reports prior to the equipment being delivered and installed, we also coordinated equipment acceptance regarding with safety checks, acceptance criteria, testing, sign off and asset tagging. We facilitated and contacted all equipment vendors that required installs and scheduled accordingly with CHLA’s Biomedical team. In addition, we provided closeout documentation with user manuals, operation guides and maintenance information including making sure all warranty information had been prepared, issued and coordinated with the Biomedical and Facilities support teams at CHLA.
Environmental Services (EVS)
We ensured all EVS standards were identified and specified correctly for everything from the cleaning products, dispensers and paper goods all the way to the cleaning equipment such as vacuums, floor/carpet scrubbers and sweepers. Along with this, we coordinated and provided the manufacturer’s recommendations for proper care and cleaning of any and all medical equipment.
Quality Improvement and Patient Safety
We provided master lists of all medical equipment requiring user and Biomed training including vendor educational materials and contacts prior to licensing. We also provided on-site services for pre-licensing visit preparations and assisted with any open or unresolved equipment issues prior to licensing.
Infection Control
We met with CHLA’s Infection Control team to understand the standards and practices of handwashing and hand sanitizing to ensure the correct dispensers were installed in each patient room, anteroom and procedural area to allow patients and staff to continuously follow the uphold the hospitals’ and CDPH regulations.
By touching base with these various departments involved in the future workflow of the space, we were able to deliver a final product with the confidence that no detail would be able to fall through the cracks. For over 100 years, CHLA has had a reputation for helping their patients in a setting that’s designed specifically for their needs. Their mission is to create hope and build healthier futures, and by partnering with Petra, we know that we’ve helped create a better, more hopeful future for all their patients to come.
