Key metrics to track in aged care maintenance and asset management

For residential care and retirement living organisations that want financial, operational and strategic success, getting a handle on the metrics behind their maintenance and asset management is an imperative first step.

There are many digital tools available that can bring your asset metrics to life, which creates a more informed decision-making process for your management team. This in turn means improved bottom lines and well-being for residents and staff. 

The Aged Care Maintenance Management specialists at MDFM shed some light on which metrics they have seen as key to their client’s continual growth and improvement. Let’s find out what they are so you can start tracking them too.

What are Maintenance Metrics?

Maintenance metrics are specific measurements or key performance indicators (KPIs) used to assess and evaluate overall maintenance performance within an organisation. For aged care, this relates to assets that require regular service or upgrades, and eventually replacement.

By measuring and analysing maintenance metrics (also referred to as trends), any gap between maintenance processes and maintenance targets quickly becomes apparent. 

“The most efficient and profitable organisations are the ones where there is a close alignment between maintenance goals and actual implementation,” comments Jess Johnson, head of customer success at MDFM.

Setting up a maintenance schedule and a dashboard is the clearest way to see and respond to maintenance trends at your organisation. Here are the top five metrics to track.

Key Metric 1: Individual Request Details

What types of requests are taking up the most of your time? Is it something as simple as hanging picture frames or more complex mechanical breakdowns? Are there more electrical or plumbing jobs popping up? And what does this tell you about your facility?

Tracking metrics related to requests by job type, service type, site/location and job status will ensure you have the base data to analyse larger trends.

This includes determining how many requests are raised at each site and how that could compare to the size of the location or condition of assets. Similarly, tracking requests by month is critical to identifying any seasonal patterns. 

If one site has more blocked drain repairs than others in a similar timeframe, perhaps it is worth investigating and upgrading the drainage at that site to reduce costly urgent repairs. 

You can also schedule maintenance during quieter months. 

“We often see May and November with the highest volume of maintenance requests, typically as the weather starts to cool down or heat up,” shares Ms Johnson.

“This is likely when there’s a change in the equipment being used or assets are being used differently. To avoid any delays when contractors are at their busiest, you may want to schedule your heavy air conditioning service just before those peak periods.”

Key Metric 2: Average days taken to complete requests

Timing is everything. Adhering to a comprehensive maintenance schedule means you remain proactive with your maintenance and servicing. 

It’s important to track the average time it takes to complete requests and the overall response time, including the status from when a request is opened, in progress, completed and closed. Consider which site and which maintenance team is staying on target. 

Ideally, you can consider this by request type to ensure that higher-risk assets remain under an acceptable time frame threshold. 

When monitoring these metrics, consider how current repair timeframes compare to previous periods, whether personnel impact overall productivity, and how the average time to complete requests differs at each site. 

“You should always watch the number of requests raised in a timeframe compared to the number closed. If those numbers are closer together, that’s a good sign that your team is getting through the requests effectively,” adds Ms Johnson.

Key Metric 3: Number of work orders completed past the due date

Similar to the average days taken to complete requests, monitoring how many work orders are completed after their due date – including overdue preventative maintenance works – will help identify recurring issues. 

There could be any number of reasons why tasks aren’t being completed on time, such as targets being too optimistic, poor work order management or a broken step in the administration process. 

Ms Johnson says the system is only as good as how you interact with it, and if some staff aren’t engaging with it enough then results can suffer. 

Meanwhile, consider introducing Contractor SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and ranking your contractors against their SLA to determine whether contractors are responding in an appropriate time frame. 

“Your system should show you who is not meeting their agreed response time. If they are not responding in time, they may need to be performance managed or even replaced,” says Ms Johnson.

Key Metric 4: Missing service reports

The service report is an essential part of maintenance tracking, yet this can often be forgotten between job completion and job close. Tracking whether a service report has been provided, or not, ensures that all job details can be collected and reviewed before a contractor is paid. 

MDFM has eliminated the issue of missing service reports as it embeds the task in its processes, meaning work orders are not closed until the report is received. 

Key Metric 5: Asset repair planning by condition rating

Data collected throughout the entire maintenance and asset management process will allow for long-term planning. Combining this data with a condition assessment of assets means you can then map out assets due for replacement within 1-3 years by condition rating.

Ask your contractors to perform a condition assessment of assets they are servicing and ageing assets that are coming up to their end of life. This information can be linked to the overall maintenance schedule and then monitored for better financial and scheduling outcomes.

So there you have it, the Top 5 Maintenance Metrics to track if you are a retirement living or residential care organisation that wants to improve efficiencies, safety and profits while taking the stress out of daily operations. 

For information more specific to your care facility, contact Jess at MDFM.