Pilot diagnostic study of a Facility Management System according to the ISO 41001 standard in Spanish hospitals

Abstract

Healthcare institutions lacked tools to evaluate existing management systems linked to support activities and services aligned to the Facility Management discipline. The publication of the ISO 41001 standard has provided the structure and content for the establishment of this type of management systems. The authors of this paper developed the first version of a diagnostic tool for a Facility Management system in the health sector and sought to test it in hospitals familiar with ISO management system audits. Eleven members of Spanish hospitals were selected for two questionnaires and an interview. Subsequently, a quantitative analysis of the questionnaires was carried out to obtain the average of the responses on a maturity scale of Facility Management activities and, on the other hand, a qualitative analysis of the interview responses. The results showed that the hospitals interviewed have an intermediate level according to the systems maturity scale; however, the interviewees stated that this tool does not support objective answers.