Tag: Hospital Cleaning Services

Environmental Services (EVS) teams do more than clean; they directly affect patient safety, infection prevention, and the hospital’s regulatory standing. As a result, hospital cleaning is no longer viewed as just operational; it’s now a strategic priority.

However, EVS leaders face constant balancing. They must manage rising costs, meet strict compliance standards, and navigate challenges like fragmented spending, limited visibility, and inconsistent cleaning practices across locations.

The good news? These issues can be solved. Hospitals can optimize performance and cost with greater spend transparency and standardized systems. This blog explores practical, data-driven ways to improve EVS strategy, with tools like Valify playing a key role in providing the visibility needed to make smarter decisions.

Hidden Cost Drivers in Hospital Cleaning Services

1. Labor and Workflow Inefficiencies

Labor is the single most considerable EVS expense. Yet for most hospitals, it’s also the most inconsistently managed.

Too often, staffing levels don’t match actual cleaning demand. You may have an OR needing frequent terminal cleans, but EVS workers are deployed to lower-risk zones instead. Or you’ve got high-traffic areas getting surface wipes while unused spaces are deep cleaned daily.

Without alignment, productivity suffers. And the problems go deeper:

• Task assignments change shift-to-shift, with no standardization.
• There’s no unified method to track productivity or time-on-task.
• Supervisors often rely on intuition, not data, to manage shifts.

This creates wide performance gaps, inconsistent quality, and higher-than-necessary labor costs.

2. Supply and Contract Fragmentation

Another primary hidden cost driver is in supplies and vendor management.

In many systems:

• The same disinfectants are ordered from multiple vendors, each with different rates.
• Hospitals stockpile cleaning products that go unused for months.
• Some EVS managers reorder before inventories are checked, causing overstocking.
• “Maverick spending” or purchases made outside contracted terms is rarely monitored.

These practices add up fast and reflect the challenges common in hospital purchased services . Without visibility, procurement has no clear line of sight into what’s being bought, in what quantity, and at what cost.

Worse, fragmentation hurts compliance. Using non-standard supplies or unapproved vendors puts hospitals at risk during audits, or in worst-case scenarios, leads to preventable outbreaks.

Ensuring Compliance Through Standardized EVS Practices

1. Structuring a Compliance-First Cleaning Program

Cleaning is compliance. However, even well-meaning EVS teams fall short without structured, documented systems.

To protect patients and meet Joint Commission or CMS guidelines, a hospital must:

• Use CDC-recommended and EPA-approved disinfectants, no exceptions.
• Define cleaning frequency by risk zone. An OR needs vastly different treatment than a billing office.
• Keep training logs, certifications, and SOPs updated and easily accessible.

This standardization doesn’t just safeguard patients. It protects hospitals from failed inspections, legal exposure, and reputational harm.

2. Monitoring and Auditing for Continuous Improvement

Even the best-designed cleaning program will falter without oversight.

• Regular internal audits ensure procedures are followed.
• Third-party vendor performance must be tracked, not just assumed.
• When audits flag inconsistencies, training and retraining cycles should be triggered immediately.

Importantly, all this needs to be data-supported. Manual inspection logs and clipboards aren’t enough. Systems must be in place to track real-time compliance and flag risk in advance.

Optimizing Hospital EVS Spend Through Data-Driven Strategies

1. Spotting Hidden Spend Leaks

EVS costs are one of the many categories of purchased services in healthcare that often slip through the cracks, buried under generic line items like ‘janitorial services,’ ‘cleaning supplies,’ or vendor codes no one double-checks. But with the right spend analytics technology , hospitals can bring those numbers into focus..

Spend visibility tools make it possible to:

• Detect contract leakage, where vendors bill beyond agreed terms or underdeliver on services.
• Identify rogue spending outside procurement oversight, often through one-off purchases or non-contracted vendors.
• Uncover price discrepancies between facilities, even for identical services or products.

Even a small 2–3% leak in a multi-million-dollar EVS budget can translate into hundreds of thousands in lost value. That’s money better spent on staffing improvements, infection control upgrades, or technology enhancements.

2. Uncovering Redundant Vendors

In many healthcare systems, it’s common to find multiple vendors delivering the same cleaning services across different locations, and no one’s tracking how or why.

This kind of duplication:

• It prevents volume-based discounts since spending is split across vendors.
• Makes performance harder to measure and compare.
• Adds complexity to supply chains and accountability structures.

When spending data is centralized and analyzed, it becomes easy to spot these overlaps. Hospitals can then consolidate vendors based on performance, pricing, and compliance history, leading to tighter controls, streamlined operations, and often better service outcomes.

3. Driving Smarter EVS Category Strategy

Optimizing EVS doesn’t mean cutting corners. It means spending with purpose.

With category-level segmentation, hospitals can break down EVS budgets into meaningful buckets like:

• Labor (in-house or outsourced)
• Supplies (disinfectants, PPE, tools)
• Equipment (floor machines, UV devices)
• Specialty services (deep cleaning, outbreak response, terminal cleans)

Once segmented, teams can:

• Target high-variance categories, where costs fluctuate dramatically between sites or shifts.
• Focus on underperforming cost centers to identify root causes and course-correct.
• Test pilot programs with measurable outcomes, such as new vendors or revised cleaning workflows.

The foundation of it all? Line-item visibility. When you know exactly where each dollar goes, you can make every one count.

4. Enabling Real-Time, Informed Decisions

EVS contracts can’t be on autopilot. In a dynamic healthcare environment, decisions must be data-informed and agile.

By leveraging real-time spend and performance analytics, hospitals can:

• Benchmark vendor pricing and results across locations or against external market data.
• Flag contracts approaching renewal, especially those linked to inconsistent service, compliance risks, or cost issues.
• Use performance scorecards to drive more innovative sourcing, renewals, and negotiations.

No more defaulting to the same vendor out of habit. Data, not legacy, should justify every contract, every renewal, and every dollar spent.

Best Practices for Sustainable EVS Optimization

• Regular Evaluation and Governance

Hospitals must build a structure for ongoing evaluation to keep EVS performance consistent and compliant. This starts with cross-functional reviews involving procurement, infection control, EVS leadership, and compliance teams, all working from shared goals.

Teams can use KPIs and audit data to assess whether vendors deliver to standard, while also integrating related areas like hospital waste management to strengthen overall compliance and efficiency. These metrics highlight gaps in service levels, response times, and cleaning quality, especially in high-risk zones like ICUs or surgical suites.

An annual review of EVS spend and contracts is equally critical. It allows systems to renegotiate outdated terms, flag vendors who aren’t meeting benchmarks, and spot new savings opportunities without compromising safety or service.

• Leveraging Purpose-Built Tools Like Valify

Hospitals need more than spreadsheets to manage EVS spend. Platforms like Valify are designed specifically for healthcare, offering real-time insights into non-clinical spend across systems.

These tools centralize and analyze data, making it easier to compare vendor performance, detect inefficiencies, and benchmark pricing. Instead of relying on fragmented reports, teams can make informed decisions using unified, accurate data.

With this visibility, sourcing becomes smarter and compliance tighter.

Hospitals can align vendors with system-wide standards, improve accountability, and ensure every dollar supports safety and savings by leveraging proven cost reduction solutions.

The Final Sweep: Smarter EVS Starts Here

Environmental Services (EVS) is no longer just an operational necessity; it’s a core driver of cost control and regulatory safety. Effective cleaning services are foundational to hospital performance and reputation, and EVS optimization is one of many healthcare cost reduction strategies that ensure sustainability without compromising patient safety.

To manage EVS efficiently, hospitals need more than manual oversight. They need visibility into spend, standardized practices across facilities, and performance data they can act on. Without these, costs drift, compliance risks rise, and accountability breaks down.

That’s where platforms like Valify come in. By clarifying non-clinical spending and empowering data-driven decisions, Valify helps healthcare systems make EVS strategies more efficient, consistent, and aligned with long-term goals.

FAQs:

Q1 – How can hospitals determine if they are overpaying for EVS services?

Hospitals can uncover overpayments by comparing actual spend against contract terms, analyzing price variations across locations, and benchmarking against market rates. Tools that provide line-item spend visibility and detect contract leakage are essential for identifying hidden costs and non-compliant charges.

Q2 – What compliance benchmarks are critical for hospital cleaning contracts?

Key compliance benchmarks include using CDC-recommended and EPA-approved disinfectants, adherence to cleaning frequency based on risk zones, and up-to-date staff training logs, certifications, and SOPs. Vendors should be regularly audited to ensure alignment with these standards.

Q3 – Can data analytics identify inefficiencies in hospital cleaning operations?

Data analytics can flag workflow gaps, misaligned staffing levels, underutilized supplies, and even redundant vendors. By segmenting EVS spend and tracking productivity metrics, hospitals can pinpoint inefficiencies that would otherwise remain hidden.

Q4 – How does vendor benchmarking contribute to infection control goals?

Benchmarking helps hospitals evaluate vendor performance realistically, comparing cleaning outcomes, response times, and audit results across facilities. This ensures that infection control protocols are consistently upheld and underperforming vendors are held accountable.

Q5 – What are the risks of using legacy EVS vendors without regular performance reviews?

Relying on long-term vendors without regular evaluations can lead to compliance drift, inflated pricing, and outdated practices. Hospitals may miss red flags without performance data, putting patient safety and budget integrity at risk.

Shara Smith

Shara Smith serves as the Marketing Director for both Valify and Valify Solutions Group, where she oversees all facets of marketing, including strategic planning, branding, digital marketing, and event management. She joined Valify in September 2021, bringing with her a wealth of experience in healthcare marketing and business development.