CHICAGO — Maintaining linen cleanliness is a must for industrial and institutional operations.
That means keeping goods clean throughout the process, especially when handling linens after they’ve been washed.
American Laundry News asked three industry professionals several questions to help enable laundry operators to better transport linens cleanly throughout their plants.
Cort Naab is director of surgical solutions for George Courey Inc., hospitality and healthcare linen specialists based in Montreal, and a board member of the Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council (HLAC).
Gregory Gicewicz is the founder and CEO of Compliance Shark in Tacoma, Washington. The business is dedicated to healthcare laundry and linen infection prevention compliance.
And Sarah Brobeck, president and CEO of the Association for Linen Management (ALM), shared advice from her experiences. ALM is headquartered in Richmond, Kentucky.
How would you “define” maintaining hygienically clean goods when handling linens in a plant, on trucks, etc.?
NAAB: Maintaining the hygienic state of laundry delivered to hospitals and healthcare facilities involves implementing best practices throughout the process to prevent cross-contamination. These practices serve as guardrails against external factors.
Typically, this includes some form of packaging to protect the laundry, such as shrink-wrapped bundles, plastic bags, cart covers or carts with doors. This packaging ensures the laundry is transported without being touched or coming into contact with contaminants.
Additionally, important best practices include truck cleaning schedules and proper personal protective equipment (PPE) for delivery drivers, preventing cross-contamination between soiled and clean linens. Utilizing clean carts for transportation is also crucial.
Despite the numerous potential contamination points, constant vigilance and adherence to best practices enable accredited laundries to provide healthcare facilities with safe, hygienic linens for their patients.
GICEWICZ: Maintaining clean goods in a healthcare laundry operation requires a controlled approach to handling that prevents contamination at every stage of the process—from processing in the plant to transportation and final delivery.
Clean linens must remain protected from any environmental contaminants, improper handling or cross-contact with soiled linens. This means ensuring linens are stored, transported and delivered in a way that preserves their hygienic integrity until they reach the end user.
BROBECK: Maintaining clean goods refers to the handling, storage and transportation of linens to ensure they remain free from contamination throughout the laundry process. This applies to processing plants, delivery trucks and customer facilities.
What level of detail/effort is required to maintain cleanliness when handling linens?
GICEWICZ: Maintaining cleanliness in linen handling requires strict procedural discipline. This is not just about keeping items visually clean but ensuring they remain hygienically safe for patient use.
This means clean and soiled linens must always be separated, whether through physical barriers, designated storage areas or time-sequenced processes. Staff must wear clean gloves when handling processed linens and follow hand-hygiene protocols. Every surface that comes in contact with clean linen—carts, conveyor belts, tables, storage shelves—must be regularly sanitized.
Clean-linen areas should have positive air pressure to prevent airborne contamination from soiled-linen areas. Covering linens with plastic, shrink wrap or sealed containers helps prevent contamination during transport and storage.
The reality is that one lapse—whether in handling, transport or storage—can compromise an entire batch of linens. That’s why attention to detail must be non-negotiable.
BROBECK: A high level of detail/effort is required to maintain cleanliness when handling linens to prevent contamination and comply with current guidelines.
A key component I would add is to use “first in, first out” in the order processed to prevent the collection of dust.
NAAB: The level of detail required is extremely high, but it becomes easy when done daily. With correct policies and constant adherence, maintaining and delivering hygienic linen becomes second nature. Inspectors can easily tell if this is muscle memory or if employees are struggling to follow proper procedures during accreditation visits.
How can a laundry operation identify areas where handling cleanliness fails?
BROBECK: A laundry operation should use monitoring, inspections and audits to identify areas where handling cleanliness fails. This should be a consistent and continual process, and when failures are identified, they should be corrected immediately.
NAAB: If it isn’t documented, it isn’t done. Any critical step to ensuring hygienic linen delivery must be documented. Supervisor checklists, equipment monitoring software, cleaning logs and other documentation methods ensure all employees are held accountable to written policies.
Additionally, if there’s a breakdown in the process, this documentation helps management identify where it occurred. Periodic testing of processed linen ensures it is hygienic, validating the facility’s policies and procedures.
GICEWICZ: Laundry operations can identify handling failures through regular audits, ATP (adenosine triphosphate) testing and visual inspections. One key indicator of failure is cross-contamination, which can occur if clean linens are stored too close to soiled ones or handled without changing gloves or washing hands.
Another is improper transport practices, meaning clean linens are placed in carts or trucks that haven’t been sanitized. Or lack of proper covering, if linens are left exposed during transport or storage. Employee errors can happen if team members inadvertently touch clean linens after handling soiled materials without following hygiene protocols.
Routine internal audits and spot checks help pinpoint failure points before they become systemic issues.
Check back Thursday for the conclusion about common challenge points and their solutions, training tips and final thoughts.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].
