Maintenance Standards
Maintenance Standards for Critical Areas in Victorian Health Facilities
The Maintenance Standards for Critical Areas in Victorian Health Facilities document provides a set of general and additional maintenance standards that can be applied to all critical areas in hospitals and health services. Critical areas are defined using the risk categories (categories A and B) previously described in the department’s ‘Cleaning standards for Victorian health facilities 2009’.
Maintenance Standards Aims and objectives
To clarify, standardise and formalise minimum standards and requirements for the maintenance of building services such as air conditioning and ventilation systems in high risk patient areas within health facilities.
To increase efficiencies and articulate lines of responsibility for health facility maintenance departments.
To enhance the reporting capacity of health facility maintenance departments on compliance and validation.
To increase health facility maintenance departments’ contribution to internal quality improvement reports and processes.
Inadequate maintenance of critical areas affects patient safety by posing an infection control risk. Such a set of maintenance standards contributes to patient safety and to continuous quality improvement processes. A process of auditing against the maintenance standards and timeframes for action are described. A summary of audit outcomes, for example a variance report detailing any problems identified and corrective action taken, can be used to provide a clear measure of current status to health service manages via, for example, a health service’s infection control committee or quality and safety committee.
The maintenance standards can be downloaded from the Department of Health website by clicking here.
