CHICAGO — For Sarah James, RLLD, MBA, director of product management at Innovative Product Achievements, linen is a “unique commodity.”
“It’s unlike a disposable supply, in that by being reusable and by having a circulating inventory, and different places where the inventory is located at all times, it kind of makes it very complex to manage,” she says.
James, along with Eva Granado, linen distribution manager at Texas Health Harris Methodist, Fort Worth, Texas, spoke on best practices healthcare laundry managers can make to fine-tune and refine their facility’s linen distribution processes in an Association for Linen Management (ALM) webinar titled Maximizing Linen Distribution Methods.
“The goal of linen distribution is to provide clean, reusable quality products and adequate supply on a timely basis in a convenient location, and making sure that you’re supporting patient care and the staff linen needs, and managing the replacement cost and the processing cost for managing the inventory,” says James.
LINEN DISTRIBUTION COSTS
According to James, the industry standard cost for linen distribution (including labor, benefits, supplies, and clean delivery and soil retrieval) is 5 cents per pound.
A hospital utilizing 4 million pounds of linen, for example, would be spending $200,000 per year in linen distribution.
“What does this mean for the hospital? If you don’t have adequate inventory controls and linen distribution process, obviously, your costs are going to be uncontrollable,” says James, which can lead to “a frustration with nursing [staff] because the linen isn’t provided in a timely manner or in the quantities that they need, and it impacts patient care.”
Once linen distribution cost is determined, James advises managers to consider the hospital’s benchmarks, which she says differ for each facility.
“If your hospital has a large footprint and you are delivering floor stock … you’re taking bulk linens around, and replenishing different closets or carts in each department, then your costs are going to have a tendency to be a little higher on the labor component,” she says.
FTE REQUIREMENTS & TIME STUDIES
Ensuring linen is being replenished and circulating in the system relies on the labor of those in the laundry staff. How can laundry managers determine the proper staffing, or full-time equivalents (FTEs), requirement suitable for their facility?
James advises managers to consider the actual linen distribution system in use, the number of distribution points in the facility, the number of soiled-linen collection points, and even the physical layout of the hospital.
“If it’s an older hospital … that’s going to increase the amount of labor that you’re going to need, as opposed to that brand-new facility where everything is laid out nicely and all the linen distribution points are easily accessible,” she says.
Having these variables in mind, James advises managers to then consider the actual circulating linen inventory, and the “space in distribution points” to further determine staffing requirements.
“Can you fit 24 hours of par in the distribution points that you have, or will the space only allow for 12 hours worth of linen to be in there to where the staff has to go back and restock?” she asks.
She also asks managers about the system’s distribution ability.
“What are the requirements that are currently set up in there? Do you really have staff with only one shift, or are you fully staffed one shift, but you have one FTE that is there in the evening?”
With staff on hand, James adds, managers should also conduct a time study to increase distribution efficiency.
“This is going to be specific to each hospital because … the constraints of each facility are going to be different,” she says, “[but staff] need to understand the time that it takes to complete the tasks and the variables that are in there.”
A CUSTOMIZED APPROACH
When working to establish or refine a healthcare laundry facility’s linen distribution methods, James stresses the need to analyze specifics.
“You’re going to want to make sure that you identify specific requirements and constraints for the hospital, evaluate the hospital benchmarks, complete your time studies and then use that information to piece together the customized approach for linen distribution,” she summarizes.
In addition to specifics, Granado also highlighted the importance of re-evaluation.
“Whenever you have a new area open, set it [up] like you think it ought to be, watch it for two weeks [and] you’ll be surprised; sometimes you have to make changes up right away,” she says. “If you don’t need [linen in a certain area], take it out, [and] put it where you need it.”
“Always look at what you can change to make it more positive, make it easier for your staff,” adds Granado.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].