Ramsay Health Care
Head Office:
Sydney, Australia
Industry:
Health Care
Size:
30,000 employees (Worldwide)
Description:
Ramsay Health Care is the largest private provider of hospitals in Australia with more than 70 hospitals in operation.
Scope of work:
Ecosafe was engaged by Ramsay Health Care to assist with Legionella management for the cold and heated water supply systems within all of their health care facilities in Western Australia.
The project commenced with individual site visits which included inspection and assessment of assets, and the facilitation of risk assessment workshops. To meet the requirements of enHealth (2015), a clinical risk assessment was undertaken to overlay the clinical risk (health risks) with water system risk. These formed the basis for the development of the Legionella Risk Management Plans.
Ecosafe was pleased to offer an innovative compliance tool that schedules and captures all water quality / Legionella checks and provides a real-time reporting tool for Ramsay Health Care personnel to determine compliance status and effectively change the management focus from lagging indicators (such verification monitoring results) to leading indicators (such as operational monitoring results).
The compliance software is used extensively across the United Kingdom and more than one thousand hospitals worldwide.
The scope of the Legionella management programs for each of the Ramsay Health Care Facilities, includes monthly site visits for high level inspection of assets, verification monitoring (sampling), interpretation of results, associated remedial actions and resampling. The management program also includes biannual program reviews and annual reviews of the Legionella Risk Management Plans. The whole management program is administered through the compliance software.
Project Outcome:
The Legionella Risk Management Plans provide a framework for Ramsay Health Care to protect the health of patients, visitors and employees.
A critical function of effective water quality / legionella management is proactive operational monitoring. Monitoring water management operations is critical to prevent Legionella build up and potential Legionella outbreaks and other water quality incidents. This proactive approach is recognised in emerging legislation and industry guidance, such as enHealth (2015) as being significantly more effective than the traditional ‘sample and respond’ model.