Healthcare Environmental Services Management Program Includes Latest Advancements

The professionals who work in healthcare environmental services management are essential in today’s medical settings. That’s because these professionals are responsible for a changing healthcare setting as illnesses continue to evolve and in turn there is a spike in the need for infection control measures. The responsibility of creating, installing and ensuring that the systems function to protect workers, clients and patients from environmental hazards present in the healthcare setting belongs to these professionals.

At Centennial College, students can spend two years in a healthcare management program called Healthcare Environmental Services Management, which offers them a range of skills they can apply to hospitals, nursing homes, and retirement homes, among which are the know-how to:

• Review current infection prevention and control practices to ensure compliance with latest legislation standards and regulations;
• Consult departmental and organizational business plans to manage the healthcare environmental services operations;
• Examine and assess the impact of social, ethical and legal issues on individual and/or organizational operations within a healthcare environmental services context;
• Assist with development, implementation and evaluation of the recruitment, orientation, training, development and retention programs for healthcare environmental services employees;
• Create and implement a departmental budget that reflects fiscal accountability and financial planning;
• Apply effective human resource management practices to enhance organizational and individual productivity and performance;
• Document, generate, and maintain all required records in compliance with current healthcare environmental services regulations, standards and established protocol;
• And more

Due to the breadth of knowledge that students require to succeed, each healthcare management degree in this program contains elements of healthcare environmental service, business and human relations. Students gain their knowledge through hands-on activities in large, well-equipped industry specific laboratories as well as computer labs with industry specific software at Morningside Campus. This location offers many tech-savvy features and, as such, creates much opportunity to work with the latest tools of the trade. Specific topics that students come to master in this offering include: the healthcare system, cleaning and linen methodology, infection control, computer applications, purchasing and materials management, communication and interprofessional collaboration for environmental services, healthcare business practices, labour relations, cost analysis and more.

Students aren’t, however, limited to classroom learning. Instead they benefit from field trips and guest speaker presentations as well as two field placements. The first field placement takes place in the second semester, the second, mean while, takes place in the fourth. Both placements aims to develop students’ knowledge in practical hands-on skills required to meet performance standards of an entry-level position in the health care environmental services department. Students gain knowledge of the role and tasks related to entry-level positions in the Healthcare Environmental Services Department, which leads to better comprehension in how to manage these positions.