$ " " PRACTICE
BUILDING CAPACITY
Build Capacity by Adding to Facility Inventory
Darryl Booth, MBA
department grow, fixed costs—such as buildings, computers, software, equipment, and vehicles—are divided among more and more permitted facilities, which results in net incremental increases to the available budget. In addition, a denser inspection dis- trict means more time inspecting and less time driving. Expanding Inventory While environmental health departments routinely maintain their inventory through new applications and renewals (remov- ing those who do not renew), departments could also purposefully set expansion goals. Through outreach and enforcement, “discov- ered” facilities can be added. Complaints Public complaints might prompt an inspec- tor to visit a facility not previously licensed or permitted. But also, complaints might come from businesses who object to competing businesses that might be “skirting the rules.” Harvesting Inspector Insights Routine inspections conducted once or more each year should be a primary dataflow. As inspectors visit each business, they will know promptly if a business has closed or has changed its regulated activities. In both cases, a procedure (e.g., a service request) should direct oce sta to make those changes to inventory, which result in rightsizing the inventory based on inspector notes. Also, never discount what can be learned by an inspector just walking around the district since businesses with similar activ- ities pop-up in the same commercial and
Editor’s Note: A need exists within environmental health agencies to increase their capacity to perform in an environment of diminishing resources. With limited resources and increasing demands, we need to seek new approaches to the practice of environmental health. Acutely aware of these challenges, the Journal publishes the Building Capacity column to educate, reinforce, and build upon successes within the profession using technology to improve eciency and extend the impact of environmental health agencies. This column is authored by technical advisors of the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) data and technology section, as well as guest authors. The conclusions of this column are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of NEHA. Darryl Booth has been monitoring regulatory and data tracking needs of environmental and public health agencies across the U.S. for over 20 years. He is the general manager of environmental health at Accela.
T he phrase “facility inventory” just makes sense to me. Facility inven- tory is the list of known entities that are monitored and served by environmental health, usually through annual permit or li- cense fees and routine surveillance inspec- tions. These entities are your restaurants, pools, tattoo shops, etc., that are often divided into health programs and inspection districts. If one multiplies the facility inventory of their department by the various annual fees, we have some idea of the budget for that department. And as you know, budgets are a key factor in hiring, facilities, equipment, and training, to name a few. So, a larger facility inventory usually points to a larger budget.
I will acknowledge that a larger inventory also implies more work (i.e., more inspec- tions, more education, more phone calls, etc.) and more work requires more resources. So, why expand and add to facility inventory if the expansion o sets the increases? Aside from the obvious public health bene- fits of more monitoring, organizations benefit from economies of scale. Remember learning about economies of scale from your early col- lege days? An Easy Economics Review The phrase “economies of scale” refers to the organizational advantages that come from increasing the scale of operations. As the facility inventory and budget of a health
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