Assessing the demand for building maintenance in a major hospital complex

Abstract

Building maintenance has until recently been a neglected field of quantitative modelling and of academic study. It has not attracted very much attention despite being regarded as under‐funded, unproductive and poorly managed, or the recognition that many of its managerial problems are demanding more research and skills than those of new works. Discusses the priorities, categories of maintenance work, and factors affecting demand for maintenance. Based on general statistics obtained, identifies and quantifies both major problems areas (in terms of cost and frequency of maintenance activities) and the nature and cause of the demand for maintenance in a major hospital complex. They have revealed no coherent picture, in that demand from wards and building seems independent of patient throughput and age of buildings. The demand for maintenance, for the main trades involved, namely plumbing, joinery, electrical and mechanical have been forecast and arrival rate of jobs per trade has been estimated. This would enhance the management process and work planning which would result in a more economic use of resources and a corresponding reduction in the total cost of maintaining property to a standard.

Value-Based Building Maintenance Practices for Public Hospitals in Malaysia

“…Internationally, research on hospital maintenance focused on several aspects such as maintenance efficiencies in Israel [21], maintenance manpower in UK hospitals [22], budgeting for university hospitals in Italy [23], building maintenance systems [24], and operational maintenance in Palestine [8]. Recent research trends have dealt with customer satisfaction and service quality [25,26], and performance [27].…”

Assessment of building maintenance management in Malaysia: Resolving using a solution diagram

“…A hospital is a building that operates 24 hours a day with sophisticated biomedical equipment that requires a host of utilities, air conditioning and refrigeration, stabilised power supply systems and medical equipment that plays a very signifi cant role in the health-care delivery system ( Al-Zubaidi, 1997 ;Shohet, 2003 ;Joseph and Francis, 2008 ). This health-care building represents perhaps the most diffi cult group of largely public sector buildings to maintain, because of their complex engineering services and their heterogeneous nature.…”

“…There are many defi nitions of maintenance. A prime aim of building maintenance is to preserve a building in its initial effective state, as far as practicable, so that it serves its purpose effectively ( Al-Zubaidi, 1997 ;Chanter and Swallow, 2007 ). The best way to achieve excellent maintenance is to have a maintenance management that matches as closely as possible the expected requirements of the user ( Pintelon, 1999 ).…”

Key performance indicators for the maintenance of public hospitals buildings in the Gaza Strip

“…Hospital buildings can be described as sophisticated public facilities due to their functional organization complexity and architectural configuration (Garip, 2011). The increase in sophistication and complexity of medical services within the health service is reflected in the sophistication and complexity of buildings, their finishes, fittings, contents and services (Al Zubaidi, 1997). Improper procedure of maintenance management is still being practiced by the maintenance managers which subsequently caused bad impacts to the facilities and the services provided.…”