Introduction to electronic facility records

We recently published our latest eGuide on how to build an Electronic Facility Record (EFR) system. The purpose of the guide is to educate facility directors and managers on the concept, benefits, and practical applications of EFR. What exactly is EFR? The easiest way to think of it is that it is the digital copy of your building. When you digitize the data from your buildings, there are countless ways you can be more productive and smarter with how you manage it.

Below is an excerpt from Section 1 of the guide. To read the entire guide, follow the link at the end of this post.

EFR VS EMR

One of the easiest ways to understand the concept of EFR is to compare it to that of an EMR, or Electronic Medical Records. Electronic medical records are the electronic version of the paper chart that simplifies and automates the data collection and organization, as well as care delivery, for a particular doctor or medical practice. Only a decade or two ago, EMRs were new and not widely adopted. Today, according to HealthIT.gov, around 85% of all doctors have adopted an EMR in their practice. Electronic Facility Records are currently
in that new adoption stage that EMRs once were. It is all of the data about your buildings and assets in one place. Instead of doctors managing the systems, it’s facility managers, which means it is your time to adopt and build the EFR for your facilities as we go through the coming years. 
​To understand this comparison more, below are common capabilities each system has, as well as the key benefits. To this extent, you can think of the EFR as your “health and medical” record for your buildings.

To carry this comparison further, both systems also get more valuable when they contain data from the early stages of life. Like people, buildings have starting points and the information and data from the planning, design and build stage are critical for decision making and forecasting when a building gets to the manage and maintain stage.

The benefit to using this comparison is that it helps drive home the point in the purpose and functionality of an EFR and also the importance of data. Especially, data from the early stages of the building like:

• Planning Documents
• Drawings
• Building specs
• Schematic design sets 
• Design development sets
• Construction document sets
• Submittals
• Commissioning data
• As Builts

Digitizing early stage building data that is most likely decades-old and stored away somewhere will go a long way in helping you understand, manage and maintain your building going forward.
Now that you have a better understanding of what an EFR is and why it is important, let’s look at how you get started at building the EFR system for your school district.

To continue reading, you can download the entire guide here.