Healthcare Facilities Network
Gosselin/Martin Associates presents High-Reliability, The Healthcare FM Podcast. Our show discusses the issues, challenges, and opportunities within the Facilities Management (FM) function. FM professionals keep America's hospitals safe, secure, and functioning.
Healthcare Facilities Network
Manage your physical environment more efficiently
Healthcare facility operators typically use hand-me-downs; that is, they use software and products that are designed for non-facilities functional areas. They make it work, even though it doesn't really for their needs. Vytal flips that script.
It is a technology designed by facility operators for facility operators. It is software made for the areas of accountability that FM leadership manages. Vytal elevates facility management by extending asset lifespan, ensuring regulatory adherence, streamlining capital projects, and championing sustainability.
The High Reliability podcast is joined by Neil Ravitz, Senior VP of Operations for Vytal. In this far-ranging discussion, we discuss careers, military service, academic medical centers and yes, even Vytal.
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Serving with a sense of mission
10:40 Software that ties the enterprise together
15:22 An end-to-end healthcare facilities-centric solution
28:20 Incorporating Artificial Intelligence into Vytal
37:20 Built for healthcare
Our thanks to Neil for his time.
See https://vytalassets.com for more information.
This episode was originally broadcast on the Healthcare Facilities Network.
Check us out at https://cref.com
Or send an email to pmartin@cref.com
Hello and welcome to the Healthcare Facilities Network. The Healthcare Facilities Network, as always, is brought to you by CREF. I'm Peter Martin, vice President of Business Development for CREF. We have offices in Boston, dallas, fort Lauderdale, salt Lake City. To learn more about CREF, go to crefcom. But I'm happy today to be joined by my colleague, neil Ravitz. Neil is the senior. You can't wave yet. You got to wait. It's the senior vice president of operations for Vital. Neil, welcome to the Healthcare Facilities Network.
Speaker 2:Peter, thanks so much for having me on today. I appreciate it. I'm excited to chat with you.
Speaker 1:My pleasure. You can wave now. So one of the things, Neil, that I'd love to do, that we've typically done on the Healthcare Facilities Network, is kind of talk about career paths and how people end up where they are, Because I mean, as you know, through the course of your career, it's seldom planned and a lot of times there's twists and there's turns. How does a former person who worked at University of Pennsylvania healthcare worked 15 years specifically in the healthcare environment? How does one become a senior vice president of operations and Vital is a software company which we're going to talk about how does one become a senior VP of operations from for a software company, from the hospital to the software? How's that happen?
Speaker 2:Yeah, as you mentioned, peter, we all take our different paths in our careers. So for me I'll actually start even before Penn, which is I started out in the military and loved my time in the military, served in the Army and in the National Guard and truly loved that sense of mission and helping people, and that was really important to me in my career. And as I transitioned over to Penn Medicine, which is an academic center based in Philadelphia, I got that same sense of mission and being able to serve others, and so I think that's what I enjoyed so much about my time at Penn. I had a chance to work in our corporate offices, I had a chance to work at one of our hospitals and then I had a chance to run several departments and outpatient facilities and these great experiences you get at these large healthcare systems. But I really did enjoy that sense of mission.
Speaker 2:And then, about two and a half years ago, I had a chance to come over and start to build something from scratch and I think that's what attracted me quite honestly to Vital was this idea of building something for health care, if you believe in the mission of health care and delivering services to patients and various populations and doing good and helping, then you also know that there's lots of challenges in health care, as you've seen in your career, and anybody who's listening has seen too, and I saw Vital as a way to start addressing one of those problems. And so that's what attracted me over here Lots to learn, and always enjoy interacting with people who deliver healthcare across the country, because I think their perspectives are really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now. So full transparency. Vital is a sister company to Cref, so we enjoy a close relationship. But before we talk about that, Neil, I'd like to go back to your military days. How long were you in the military for?
Speaker 2:Well, I spent, I guess, a total almost 12 years uh in the military between active duty and national guard, did uh one deployment to iraq and in 2004, 2005, uh, I was a field artillery guy. So if my hearing's ever terrible, please uh blame it on all of the the I was around. But yeah, yeah, really, really love my time in the service and keep in touch with the guys and girls that I served with and just tremendous relationships from from that time of my life.
Speaker 1:So 04 and 05, about 20 years ago now. What I'm trying to remember, you know. Everything seems like, so it's easier for me to remember 1991, the first time we went to Iraq. But in 04, 05, operations had already started, right, so was it you? So the war had been completed. What was your? What was your scope, what was your mission over in Iraq?
Speaker 2:Sure, so it was really about the second year of Operation Iraqi Freedom. At the same time, oef was going on in Afghanistan. So we had several key missions. One was protecting some bases Department look for weapons of mass destruction. And then we also did police station stand ups and you know, talk about a fascinating time. You know trying to establish a country and you know teach them democracy, and you know how to police their own people in a democracy versus dictatorship. Really, just, you know fascinating time. So, yeah, spent about 12 months both in Baghdad and then northern Iraq, from 04 to 05.
Speaker 1:Wow, well, what an experience. And so you talked about mission. That seems to be a common theme in kind, of your career and what you've done. How did from? How did the health care, the transition from the military into health care, and when I was doing, you know, the recruiting with Gosling Martin Associates, I always loved to find those military guys because, and gals because I thought they, you know, they're able to transition into health care facilities really well because you're used to transition into healthcare facilities really well, because you're used to pressure and you're used to process and you're used to Allah, you're used to leadership. How did and I'm always intrigued how some of the military folks find their way into healthcare? How did you find your way into healthcare out of the military?
Speaker 2:You know I was fortunate.
Speaker 2:One of the executives at Penn Medicine at the time had a son that had kind of followed my same path in terms of going to West Point and then serving in the military, and so just you know, connecting with him socially ended up being my entrance point into Penn Medicine and I'm forever grateful to him for that opportunity.
Speaker 2:But I will say at Penn Medicine we had a veterans group, an active veterans group that really tried to promote some of that camaraderie that you find in the military. And then we also had a really active recruiting campaign to get people from the military, and not just on the facility side, certainly on the nursing side as well. The military produces some really fabulously trained people Right as I was leaving Penn Medicine and we had set up a program for the Navy to come and train their trauma surgeons at Penn Medicine so that when they were going out into the field they had seen the worst of the worst of the trauma and were ready to serve our soldiers, no matter where they were in the country. So Penn really played an active role in trying to recruit veterans into their organization.
Speaker 1:One of the things and Dee we want to talk about. You know I want to ask you about the origin of Vital and how it started. But I'm always intrigued. Penn big system, academic medical center, very prestigious I'm always interested to find you're coming out of the military, you're used to operating in a military but now you're in this collaborative. I'm assuming Penn is like all these academic matters, collaboratively based. Titles matter, probably a little bit political. Was that an adjustment for you, coming out of the military, into that type of an environment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Peter. There are certainly synergies and likenesses between the organizations large group bureaucracies, certainly lots of subspecialized people who are taking care of X or Y or Z. So I think those are the commonalities. The political side of thing was just something new and it takes, you know, time. You know, one of the pieces of advice I always gave to people who got to Penn was you know, come in and observe and partner and help people and build your reputation, because the longer you are there and the more you're a proven person who partners and helps people get things done, the better off you'll be. And I think that's true for lots of organizations. Don't come in there and push people to the side and say I know how to do it better because I was at place. Why Come in and partner? And I think that was a learning piece for me, but I think it paid off in the long run.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the only way to be effective in a big organization like that right, it really is. How long did you last? How long did you observe for before? You know, some people like 90 days. I always like how long did you observe? What's your kind of magic number? Or is there one you just go by feel?
Speaker 2:You know, I generally say it's at least 90 days it's probably three to six months of just, you know, observing and then starting to say have we considered doing it a different way? And here are a couple of thoughts of what I've learned. You know, people, the higher you move up the chain I think the shorter the timeframe has to be. But I think in those first couple jobs it was a good, you know, three to six months before I was really able to start making impactful changes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, we could keep talking about Penn medicine, academic medical centers. I've always I've always been fascinated by those big academic medical centers because they all kind of share that collaborative based in the political, but they're all operate a little differently too, so it's always interesting to find out what the insides are like. But we're not here to blow the lid off pen, right, Neil? What is Vital and can you share the origin story of Vital? Because I think it's a big differentiator.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. When we think and we describe Vital, we describe it as an enterprise platform for managing your real estate, your facilities and your regulatory compliance. And the opportunity that we saw was that health care systems were using two, three, four different softwares to manage this part of their business. And when I say this part of their business, let's dive into that a little bit. Traditionally, a health system or a hospital will have a CMMS system that's run by the facilities team. Then they're going to have a capital planning, you know planning tool to go build the new cancer center, go update the ORs. So that was a separate system.
Speaker 2:You know, then they probably have something for clinical engineering and biomed, and that was separate. And you know, you get into sustainability and then the regulatory compliance and maybe they're using Excel sheets for one of these things. And so what we saw was in a portion of the hospital and the health system that's always strapped for people and for money, they are running it, you know, in an inefficient manner, not because they're not good at what they do it in an inefficient manner, not because they're not good at what they do, they're actually really good at what they do, but they've kind of been a victim to a lack of solutions. They've always just had to buy three, four, five systems. They've had to manage through Excel, and we wanted to offer something different a true enterprise platform that was built for healthcare and not for running commercial real estate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the big difference right Built for healthcare and not for commercial real estate. It's interesting. I think you kind of hit on the point. I think facilities folks and that's a little bit of my biasness, because I worked with them for so long they're just used to doing with whatever it is. You said an Excel spreadsheet. Okay, you give me an Excel spreadsheet, I'll figure it out. It's almost like they're victims of their own success, right, Whatever it is, they'll make it work, even if it means they're using five different solutions. So vital is tying all that together.
Speaker 2:It sounds like yeah, it really is Joking. Back to our military discussion at the beginning, Peter, I'd say it's kind of like that first sergeant or that sergeant major out in the field Give them some duct tape and a can of WD-40, and they'll go figure it out right. I mean, that's a lot of that can-do attitude that we've found and it's great to have that. But starting to think about a platform that can do all of these things and connect those data points, that was really the thought that we've had. And as we've grown over the last three, four years and we've had more clients and more hospitals come on board, the facility directors continue to give us these great ideas about how we could make life easier.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you start at the really basics of it, right, a CMMS system should be able to track your corrective maintenance and your preventative maintenance, give you some schedule when do we have to change out the HEPA filters?
Speaker 2:When do we have to go do those things? So you know that core functionality is built into the system. But as you start, you know, talking to the facility directors around the country, they start to give you better ideas and they say, well, yeah, it'd be great if we could do every preventative maintenance that we had scheduled, but, Neil, there's not enough people, there's not enough hours, there's not enough money to do that. So can you tell me the five that are really the most important and starting to build that functionality, things like that criticality, understanding the assets into the system and that is unique to healthcare? The guy who runs a large real estate facility in Philadelphia or Boston, wherever right. They're not thinking about life safety code, they're not thinking of environment, of care standards, and those are the things that we built into the system to really differentiate it. And that's what gets us excited about talking to people around the country about this right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so, as you were developing it and still relatively young, right, I mean three, four years old, that's not old. What are some of the challenges you face as you do that? Now, your mission was probably really clear, right, you want to be a healthcare-centric platform, end-to-end, so you have that. But what are some of the challenges as you get into it and you start to build?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think some of it is having people understand there is a different way.
Speaker 2:And let's talk about regulatory compliance for a second.
Speaker 2:You know all of the people who are listening here understand life, safety and environment of care standards. They are used to working within the confines of what they have, so they're probably used to either doing their environment of care rounds themselves, tracking that in an Excel spreadsheet, or maybe hiring somebody like Cref or other people to come in and do a mock survey and tell them all of the things that DNV or Joint Commission are going to come find. They are used to working that way, but we are trying to introduce a new way of working and so when we talk about our regulatory modules specifically, you know we're saying you can document those things not in Excel but rather within Vital and then be able to all of those findings and create work orders automatically, and so it's really kind of like introducing a whole new workflow and a whole new concept to people, and so sometimes people get that and it makes total sense, and other times that's a real challenge because nobody has a regulatory and compliance software built into their budget for 2024.
Speaker 2:So you know introducing that this is a different way of working and a better and hopefully more efficient way. That's really starting to change the game, but it's a challenge introducing something new into the market.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you talked about getting people to change their or challenge them to change their thought process. We find that all the time in facilities, especially because you have some folks who have been doing it a long time and they're really good at doing it. So that's a challenge. But I was just thinking on the other end of the spectrum, neil, with, as you know and we talk about this a lot on the Healthcare Facilities Network dealt with it all the time in recruiting, and every hospital you talk to says the same thing they can't find people. I have to imagine that a technology, a program like this is in this assistance is helpful for those folks who come in don't, when we're getting more and more of them who don't know facilities and they don't know regulatory and you know the risk that is, that's your biggest risk, right, the regulatory component. You don't want people dying. I have to imagine that this is a technology that can help in some of that learning curve.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely. When we were designing you know this system, one of the things we were trying to do was was take that person you know that facilities person who had been in the industry for two years, and make them as knowledgeable as the person who had been in this, in the healthcare arena, for 25 years.
Speaker 1:And that's a big difference, right you?
Speaker 2:know the people around the country in this profession, this line of work for 20 years and, man, they can just rattle off an environment of care, standard 3.0, point right, and they're like a walking catalog and they're such a resource. But how do you get that person who you just hired and maybe they came from pharmaceuticals, maybe they came from, you know, manufacturing or something. They're the next generation, and so how do we get them as knowledgeable, you know, as that person that's been in the arena for 30 years? That's what we're trying to build into the software and I think technology offers a solution there. You know, technology is such an interesting part of our lives right now.
Speaker 2:Peter, right, Some of us were spending too much time on our phones, some of us too much time in front of laptops. But you know, when we go around the country, we see people all over the spectrum of technology. We've got some clients who want to print out a work order and give it to the technician to go walk across campus and do that work and then walk all the way back across campus with that same piece of paper. And so we're trying to meet people where they are technology wise and understand that iPads and a mobile solution. These things are all out there and maybe you pick up an extra half hour of efficiency a day, or an extra two hours a week. You know that starts to add up over the time because we are in a long game, right. I mean facilities and hospital operations. It's not, you know, a three-day sprint, it's a 365. And so, looking for those efficiencies and trying to meet people where they are technology-wise, those are really principles of our company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and meeting them where they are is so critically important, as you were saying that. I just thought back to a hospital we had worked with and two stories that came out of that and kind of speak to what you just said. It was working with their director and they were introducing the iPad. They were introducing the iPad. You know. Closure, work orders go out on the iPad, go out in the field. Two of the comments and anybody who's a director of FM. I'm sure they've heard these similarly.
Speaker 1:But one person didn't want to do it because he was afraid he was being tracked when he was in the bathroom and that's what you know. You're going to track you and you probably are. And then the other one, very rudimentary though, he couldn't type and he was afraid and he didn't want to. That was his barrier there. So it's really interesting. Like you say, when you meet people where they are, you might find something you never thought of, right, is there? You know, just talking about meeting people where they are, is there anything that stands out for you, kind of a meeting people where they are moment that you've had as you've developed the software?
Speaker 2:There's probably a couple of things that come to mind. We have some users and people throughout the country who are interested in AI and how can we get the most out of that new development within technology. And maybe there's something underneath that we can't even see with our own eyes, and so there's a portion of our user group that gets us excited about things like AI, and I know that's probably something you're going to be chatting more about on this channel. So there's that user and then there's, you know, the user who you kind of say you know they don't know where the space bar is and they don't know how to log into a computer. And so sometimes for me that was the biggest aha moment is as much as we need bells and whistles and AI and fascinating things to change the landscape.
Speaker 2:We have to have this balance in our system that helps the guy who doesn't know where the space bar is not be intimidated. And so the reason I bring that kind of aha moment up to you, peter, is we try and instill that in all of our design too. We don't want hidden buttons and special dropdowns and 18 clicks. We really try and simplify that interface. We have competitors out there who have been. Their software is 15 years old, 20 years old, and I'm sure you know they've got lots of good features, but if those features aren't things that users can use on a day-to-day basis, then we've missed the mark, and so maybe that's my aha moment. As much as we got some great, awesome, forward-thinking AI stuff, we have to balance it with. Sometimes, you know, our user is just doesn't know where the space bar is.
Speaker 2:And so how do you make this not intimidating to them?
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you how do you do that? And I think you just gave an example relative to making things accessible. So I think we've all been there right. When we're trying something new, if you have to go five or six things, I get all of it. Yeah, so is that what you're kind of guarding against as you develop Vital as a product?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We've got a really great product team and they like to think through these things. When a user asks for a new feature or we say, hey, we're going to go do this in clinical engineering or in capital planning, we try and really be thoughtful about that stuff and sometimes it just takes a second to pause and maybe ask for some feedback from the field. We've got a great customer service team and a customer success team who are out there interacting with users every day. They're answering phone calls and emails and saying, hey, I can't find this button, and we try to take all that in and sometimes just pause and breathe for a second and say you know what, if we're going to put a cloud out into our product for people to use, it needs to meet all of these needs, and so I think that's been our approach and constantly taking the feedback from those hospitals we're in over 50 hospitals across the country right now, lots of different states, lots of different regulatory environments and constantly hearing from them has been a really helpful approach to managing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, if you look at the demographic because we talk about the demographics all the time and the lack of people coming in, you really are hitting both extremes of the spectrum, right? So you know, in these facilities and I just always go back to facilities but the people running the regulatory the same. You might have somebody who's worked in that department 45 years, started out with a piece of paper and now you're bringing in somebody who may be 25, fresh out of college, and their world is on this thing and you've got to have a product that both can use.
Speaker 2:It's an interesting challenge it's, it's an interesting, uh, it's an interesting challenge and I think it really is. And and you know, peter, you were out at ashy this year in california and what a great opportunity to hear and learn. But, uh, you know, I think it also fits a little bit of that demographic that we saw, uh, you know, walking around the booths and and presenting, and know Ashi was making a really concerted effort to try and have young presenters and newer people out there. But I think it represents the spectrum of people that we have in the market right now. And how do we engage and promote people to keep wanting this as a line of work and a profession, because you're really helping the greater good? But if we don't attract people there and we have facilities that can't operate, it's going to be a tough road. So I think Ashley was kind of a great example of that. I was really encouraged and excited to see that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting, kind of going every year just to see the demographic change, you know, and, as you said, out of necessity, because we got to keep hospitals. They can't really shutter, they can't close Well, they do, but it's not good for us. Ai deal you mentioned it and you're right. We are going to do a show in the future just about AI and its use in facilities and software. But how does AI like I imagine I know AI. I mean, you hear about it and people accept it. Now, right, it's part of life, you can't fight it. I use it sometimes. If I'm writing something, does this sound good? But how do you incorporate AI into a software product? What are its uses? I don't know the correct way to say that, but how do you incorporate it in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's a couple examples that come to mind, peter. One is starting to introduce machine learning into our platform, and let me give you a really specific example Boston area, and you've been using Vital and for the last six months, every time that there's a heating and air conditioning issue at your hospital, you assign it to Tommy, who's one of your technicians. You are exhibiting a behavior and you're doing that within the system. You know you are exhibiting a behavior and you're doing that within the system. And so, like, the machine learning that we're introducing into Vital is that you shouldn't have to go in three months from now and assign that, to assign that work order to Tommy, without you having to spend five minutes going into the system and assigning it to Tommy, and so that's an example of machine learning that we're introducing into the system, but it's practical in that you start saving Peter Martin five minutes today and 10 minutes on Thursday and five minutes next Wednesday. That's how you can start introducing, you know, technology and machine learning into our platform.
Speaker 2:You know you also asked about AI, artificial intelligence. You know we're seeing all sorts of possibilities because these assets that make up our facilities have a tremendous amount of data with them. You know they have the make and the model and the year that they were installed and you know how many times you've done preventative maintenance on it and how much you spent the last year doing corrective maintenance on it. And you're getting all of this data and we think it's going to really present a whole nother opportunity for health systems to manage their assets more effectively. We're super excited about the launch of our clinical engineering module this fall and we think that's going to be a whole nother set of data. So you know, what we see is just this future of AI within all of the data and hopefully trying to make the lives of users easier but also more informed, and that's really the principle that we're going with.
Speaker 1:That's funny because everybody does. You know, to me and I'm not a mathematics person, I'm not a smart person when it comes to this stuff, my mind honestly doesn't go that way. But I've always thought like data is the treasure trove. It's almost like the you know, thinking back to those old, probably dating myself the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where he's going for the Holy Grail. It's almost like, because everybody talks about data, right, we talk about data as we start our sustainability programs, but we always go, but what's?
Speaker 1:The data isn't always there, because how do you go back and get it from 20 years ago, 15 years? Everything's changing so rapidly. Benchmarking surveys that ASHI has done and IFMA has done and they're great, I read them all the time, but again, it's very limited data. I mean it might be based on 200 hospitals across the country and there's so many more that data to you or folks, that must be kind of like that holy grail, right, if you can get that data and you make those decisions based on data that data and you make those decisions based on data.
Speaker 2:You're doing your job?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it really is, and my experience is when I was at Penn dealing with patient data and finance data and reimbursement data, right, and clinical data working with a physician colleagues right, there's always such a an emphasis on on data and you know, I think where, where we're trying to push the, the industry and our colleagues in healthcare is that same thing exists within our mechanical assets and and our regulatory compliance and our clinical engineering and our sustainability and you know, this whole set of data you know that maybe has been overlooked a little bit in healthcare to run these organizations better and smarter and more efficiently, rather than, you know, just kind of saying, like that piece is just ops, let's leave it alone.
Speaker 2:You know, at Penn I had so many great opportunities to work with. You know these leaders in healthcare trying to solve leukemia and and you know these rare diseases and you realize watching these really fascinating and intelligent people try and solve these really complex data issues. They're always starting with data and and we want to present, you know, to healthcare organizations that same opportunity. We're not solving leukemia, but we're trying to solve an important part of maintaining the ORs and keeping them open so that we can deliver care. That's where I think the future is.
Speaker 1:I think some of it too goes and listening to you talk goes back to that mindset shift. Right, you know you were talking about changing how people do the work and facilities. They just get it done. Right, you know, I'm going to fix the air handler, I'm going to fix the boiler and data. It's good, but my primary responsibility is to fix it. So you're right, it's weird, you think about it. It's like you educate as you. You're continually educating too, right, as you push forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we really are, and that's the fun part, especially for me. What gets me most excited is when we do have time to spend with a hospital operator in Oregon or in Massachusetts or in Texas. You know and hear, you know's their challenge and then think through whether the system as it exists today offers a solution or do we need to build the next version of it. And that to me is probably the most satisfying part of the job right now, and it's really. It's fun to introduce to people a new way of doing things, see them start to use software in the application and then go tell a friend that man, that's a lot better than what I was doing.
Speaker 1:Right and, I have to imagine, is it a continual evolution? When you're developing a software product, it must be right. You can never. There's never a time.
Speaker 2:It really is. I think all of us probably get either frustrated or excited when some new version of our iPhone comes out. Right, you get some update, you go to bed and you wake up the next morning. You're like what happened to my home screen. Right, we're a little bit more calculated.
Speaker 1:That's why I don't plug it in overnight. We're a little bit more calculated. That's why I don't plug it in overnight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're a little bit more calculated, but you know, peter, to be honest, we're probably doing about one release every month right now. Sometimes they're really big features. We released an awesome analytics component within the platform. We did that about a month ago inserted Power BI dashboards for our users within the platform, so we're really excited about that. And now the product and engineering team just put something out last night a bunch of new little features, and then we're heads down getting ready to release our new clinical engineering feature. So our team's working hard and we're excited about the things we're putting out, but it's it's a very iterative process and the piece that gets released for clinical engineering this year will look better and different six months from now. So we're constantly innovating and producing new versions of it, as we should, and we're taking everybody's input when we do that.
Speaker 1:So I am speaking with Neil Ravitz. Neil is the Senior Vice President of Operations for Vital. Neil as a software specifically for healthcare and born out of healthcare, what else sets Vital apart from the competitors? And now, that's a big differentiator, right, developed for and based on healthcare. But are there other differentiators?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's really two or three. First is being built for healthcare is different. Healthcare has different needs, They've got different needs, They've got different regulations, They've got different compliance things. So I think that's first and foremost. I think that the second thing is thinking that we wanted to produce an enterprise solution. Certainly, we have clients who buy just individual modules, happy to help them, but wanting to present an enterprise solution. That is then your, you know your point solution. So you know thinking differently about not wanting to go to six different places to get the picture getting a single one. So I think that's really important. And then the last one is we really hired people like myself who came from healthcare, who have spent time at a healthcare facility and understand what that's like. That's really important. So I'd say those are probably the three big things, Peter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and very true. I mean, healthcare is a unique environment. So you mentioned modules. And for our final question I don't think I asked you this. You've talked about how many modules are there and what are they.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks. So the first is our facility asset management module, that is our traditional CMMS assets, corrective maintenance, preventative maintenance that's one module. Environment of care rounds, mock surveys, dnv standards, joint commission standards all wrapped up into the regulatory and compliance one. So that's our second one. We've got a capital planning one that is scope, schedule, budgets that's how you manage those projects, whether it's replacing a boiler or building a new cancer wing. You know those capital projects and planning. So that's our third module.
Speaker 2:Our fourth one is our sustainability module, so that one is taking in clients energy, waste and water consumption and not only showing them how they consume it and the costs associated with it, but also starting to calculate their carbon footprint. So depending on where you are in the country, our colleagues have some different requirements about starting to report their sustainability pieces. So that's our fourth module. Our clinical engineering module is the one that gets released here in November, and so that is clinical engineering, biomed same thing as our facility asset management, but just now for clinical assets, and then, wrapped around, that is all of the analytics support. So really excited about the platform, but hopefully that gives you a little bit better view of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it does. I mean, certainly in the facilities world. It's an I mean you're sitting here, but it's an end-to-end solution. It's kind of everything that they touch all wrapped up in one, neil, as we say goodbye and thank you for your time. Anything I didn't ask you about or anything to touch on. If it's important, we can have you on again, of course. But any final thoughts?
Speaker 2:Just that, peter. We appreciate your time and thanks for sharing some of our stories out there with your connections. But I'd say if I could give anybody a little piece of advice is just to know that there are different solutions out there in the market. And I know everybody has frustrations day to day. I have my own frustrations, you know Zoom and Teams and Microsoft and everything else. But I just encourage people to think through what are the things that are making the job harder and are there different opportunities out there? And I think ours is one of those things that can help and love the opportunity to talk to people.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I will put the contact information at the end of this video so you can find Neil, find Vital. You're right, though as we bring in people who don't have facilities experience, there's going to be a premium on technology. Something's got to help carry that load because it's not happening. So, Neil Ravitz from Vital, thank you so much for your time this morning. Thanks, Peter. Thank you, I'm Peter Martin from the Healthcare Facilities Network sponsored by Cref. As always, thank you for watching and we will be back with another episode in the near future. Take care.