CHICAGO — Healthcare laundries play a pivotal role in infection prevention, yet the industry faces persistent challenges in maintaining cleanliness standards.
With patients’ health and lives at stake, it is critical to address these challenges head-on.
American Laundry News communicated with three healthcare laundry experts to examine common pitfalls, their causes and actionable solutions for achieving and sustaining high standards of infection prevention.
LAUNDRY CHEMICAL AND FORMULATION FAILURES
Over nearly 40 years in the laundry business, Edward McCauley, president and CEO of United Hospital Services in Indianapolis, and an editorial advisory board member, has seen healthcare laundries lower expenses by reducing laundry chemicals, eliminating certain laundry chemicals altogether, and condensing laundry formulas to save time and energy to the point where effectiveness has diminished.
“Reducing chemicals almost always should be met with an increase in mechanical action or time but that also defeats the desired effect of reducing expenses,” he says. “What ensues when less detergent, alkali or bleach is used is greater staining, greater discoloration due to redeposition and improper disinfection of the linen items.
“Reducing chemicals for the sake of saving money in today’s environment is fool’s gold as we now all have to prove our ability to not only get linens clean and stain-free but to render them hygienically clean with no residual bacteria growth.”
McCauley adds that oversight entities such as the Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council (HLAC) and TRSA Hygienically Clean are forcing the healthcare laundry industry to bolster their formulations and chemical use to achieve hygienic goals.
“Years ago, the healthcare laundry industry moved away from bacteriostatic softeners because of the expense,” he continues. “They felt that it was good enough to just use a simple softening agent and disregard the bac stat portion.
“Sure enough, chemical expenses were reduced but so was the shelf life of the linen. Bac stat softeners guard against bacteria growing on the linens as they sit on the shelf at the plant or at the hospital for 30 days or more. Why wouldn’t the industry want this protection?”
Laundries are coming back to these bacteriostatic softeners to gain better bacteria scores on their test pieces, McCauley shares.
“Many years ago, I worked at a laundry that had a combined break/bleach operation at an average temperature of 130 F. The entire program lasted 18 minutes,” he relates. “When we submitted bacteria testing on these items, we often failed.
“In today’s environment, this would never work as the formulation would not have enough time to do proper soil breaking, soil suspension, bleaching and disinfection to meet either the HLAC or TRSA Hygienically Clean standards of today.”
MAINTAINING CLEANLINESS
John Hopper, the director of quality for ImageFIRST Healthcare Laundry Specialists headquartered in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, says the most difficult part of the infection prevention process is maintaining the cleanliness of the linen after it is washed.
“The majority of the ‘touches’ in the plant happen after the wash/dry process,” he points out. “In order to maintain the cleanliness of the linen, all of those surfaces that the linen touches must be maintained in a manner that will not lead to recontamination.
“The number of surfaces that the linen can come into contact with, along with the high level of activity around those surfaces, make it a real challenge to keep them clean.”
How can an operation improve procedures for cleaning these areas?
“Establishing a good routine, with the use of checklists and schedules, is key to developing a good procedure,” Hopper shares. “The surfaces must be constructed of materials that are easy to clean, and the tools and materials needed to clean those surfaces must be readily available.
“Creating a convenient home for those tools and materials can ensure that they are available when needed. The employees assigned to keep those surfaces clean must be given the time and the training necessary to complete those tasks.”
How can healthcare laundries better train and oversee employees so that cleanliness/infection prevention remains consistent throughout the plant and delivery of goods?
“The most important concept to train employees on is the ‘why’ behind the process,” explains Hopper. “Ensuring that the employees understand who the end user is will cause them to place more importance on the task.
“When employees are aware that the end user of the linen is likely someone in a weakened and vulnerable condition, they will likely place greater importance on maintaining the cleanliness of the linen and the surfaces that the linen comes into contact with.”
Check back Thursday for overcoming standards and oversight failures.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].
