Maintenance involves routine steps intended to keep structures and systems operating correctly. It’s fair to say you’re performing routine health maintenance when you brush your teeth or take vitamins. Vehicle maintenance involves topping up fluids and replacing the oil.
It’s also vital to maintain buildings, including your work buildings. When you’re launching your private practice, your focus may be on establishing services, hiring employees, and promoting your service to patients. Setting up a maintenance checklist is an essential part of running your practice. Let’s look at some critical maintenance you’ll need to perform to keep your private practice running smoothly.
Clarify your priorities.
Prioritizing maintenance begins with understanding what resources and systems you rely on daily. For example, electricity’s crucial for almost all businesses. Buildings need electricity to use computers and machinery. Without electricity, you can’t even turn on the lights.
There’s little you can do to prevent power outages, but you can weigh the benefits of installing a portable generator. Generators supply power to your crucial systems when power isn’t available from your utility company. Suppose you opt to install a generator. Ensuring you have fuel for your generator and that it’s adequately maintained would be essential maintenance tasks.
A reliable internet connection would be another essential resource for a private practice offering online speech therapy. You may have appointments scheduled with clients. As a speech therapist, your role involves meeting with people with speech delays, completing professional assessments, and constructing speech therapy plans to help patients communicate effectively.
Speech-language pathologists strive to provide consistent services because many patients have difficulty adapting to change. For example, many people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have speech delays. People with ASD benefit from consistent schedules, making it crucial their speech therapy sessions occur when scheduled.
Speech-language pathologists offering online services can prevent appointment delays or cancellations by maintaining their computer systems and choosing a reliable internet provider. You can also prevent delays by establishing a backup plan in case your internet service is down. You may be able to use tethering from your smartphone to access the internet and keep your appointments.
Identify critical upgrades your building needs.
While the purpose of maintenance is usually maintaining the systems, sometimes upgrades are required. For example, when your heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) technician performs routine maintenance on your HVAC system, they may perform routine tasks such as cleaning condenser coils and replacing your air filter. However, if you’ve noticed your utility bills are higher than usual, it could be time to replace or repair your HVAC system.
Your HVAC technician could determine your thermostat needs to be replaced. People use thermostats to set the ideal temperature inside structures. When the thermostat works, it activates your furnace or air conditioner. Your heater warms the air in the winter, and your air conditioner extracts heat from the air in the summer. With a faulty thermostat, your HVAC system doesn’t receive the correct information, preventing it from coming on when you need to adjust the temperature inside your building.
HVAC technicians use their years of experience to evaluate your system and identify issues. Your HVAC company can also inspect your ductwork and perform duct maintenance. Holes in your ducts can cause air leaks, undermining your HVAC unit’s ability to heat or cool your offices.
Review seasonal maintenance checklists.
There are multiple indoor and outdoor tasks that make up seasonal maintenance checklists. Review lists of household maintenance tasks and determine which of these tasks apply to your private practice. Suppose your practice is in an office building. You may not be responsible for exterior maintenance tasks. However, if your practice is in a detached building, you may need to think about cleaning the gutters and clearing sidewalks.
Ultimately, you’ll create multiple checklists, including ongoing maintenance tasks, such as stocking the toilet paper, monthly maintenance tasks, and seasonal maintenance your building requires. Thanks to modern technology, you can create reminders using an electronic calendar, prompting you to work through the checklists when required.
All buildings and building systems require maintenance. Performing regular maintenance can prevent significant issues and costly repairs.
