Facility engineering staff benchmarking for workforce modeling at veterans health administration

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to organize and compare benchmark information gathered during the development of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) consensus report Facilities Staffing Requirements for Veterans Health Administration (VHA) – Resource Planning and Methodology for the Future and other publicly available facility engineering staffing benchmarks and rules-of-thumb information. Design/methodology/approach: Presentations and transcripts were reviewed to identify pertinent facility engineering staffing benchmarks discussed in meetings and workshops held by the Committee on Facilities Staffing Requirements for Veterans Health Administration (VHA) while developing the NASEM consensus report: Facilities Staffing Requirements for VHA – Resource Planning and Methodology for the Future. Researchers also collected and reviewed sources not evaluated in the NASEM consensus report. Findings: Compared to publicly available benchmarks for FE staffing, the VHA’s FE staffing levels are slightly higher. However, caution should be used when referencing these public benchmarks for the purpose of implementing a staffing model at the VHA. It is difficult to fairly compare VHA and publicly available FE staffing benchmarks because there can be large differences even between public benchmarks regarding similar work units. Other factors, such as average facility size, age and department structure can also vary, making it problematic to assume that these benchmarks are appropriate for the VHA’s unique facility conditions. Originality/value: The findings can be used as a point of reference by VHA and other health-care systems for implementing staff modeling for the built environment workforce to support workforce planning and benchmarking.