CINCINNATI — “It was a workhorse, a really good piece of equipment, but after the 25-year mark, we decided to switch.”
That’s Tom Daskalakis, vice president and COO, University of Cincinnati Health system (UC Health), speaking about a recently replaced 14-module tunnel washer from Lavatec Laundry Technology Inc.
UC Health owns Midwest Laundry and, in turn, the equipment providing clean linen for the system’s hospitals and others in the southwest Ohio-northern Kentucky-southeast Indiana area.
“We’re the region’s only ‘academic’ health system providing high acuity care,” Daskalakis says.
UC Health includes four entities: University of Cincinnati Medical Center, West Chester Hospital, Drake Hospital (a long-term care facility) and UC Physicians, which employs about a thousand providers.
Midwest Laundry processes more than 15 million pounds of linen each year, about one-third of which is for UC Health’s own facilities. The balance of goods comes from other area hospitals as far north as Dayton, Ohio, and from more than 120 clinics, eight senior living centers and several hospitality operations.
Built in 1990, the 45,000-square-foot facility also houses a 20-year-old Lavatec tunnel, and 85 employees turn out clean linens for timely deliveries seven days a week.
A key partner in this scenario is Sodexo, a $16.6 billion global corporation in quality of life services (food service, environmental services and facilities management), which include laundry and other healthcare operations. Sodexo manages Midwest Laundry, a for-profit arm of UC Health, as well as similar facilities in about a dozen U.S. cities, coast to coast.
Jim Byrnes, district manager for Sodexo Laundry, says, “We have Lavatec equipment in most of them. It seems to be simpler with fewer moving parts than others, and it works very well.”
CUSTOMERS OBLIVIOUS TO TRANSITION
Midwest Laundry staff members were universal in their praise of the transition process, including Production Manager Jim Robinson.
“It went so smoothly and so quickly, we were done and producing and customers would say, ‘What? You had a new machine come in? We didn’t miss a thing,’” he says.
Harley Caum, chief engineer and maintenance supervisor, says, “We were able to keep up with demands by running the other tunnel 24/7 for about seven days. By then, the new system was pretty much ready to go.”
Steve Roark, Sodexo’s client relations manager, says, “We worked through those 10 days without customers even knowing that the process was being performed.”
“Not knowing” also includes Daskalakis.
“I wasn’t exactly sure when the tunnel itself was going in,” he says. “I called Jim (Byrnes) to ask and he said, ‘We’re almost done; we’re in the eighth day now.’ That’s how smoothly it went.”
SIGNIFICANT SAVINGS AND MORE
The “reductions in tangibles” Daskalakis was anticipating haven’t been far behind.
“We compared water meter readings to this time last year,” says Byrnes. “There was at least a 20% reduction in water usage the first month alone.”
“We expect great utility savings,” says Daskalakis, “with all tunnel system components contributing.”
The hydraulic press “pushes a lot more moisture content out, which means less time in the dryers,” says Caum. The dryers themselves are equipped with multiple-phase temperature controls and infrared sensors that “really help a lot on energy efficiency. They cut our dry times by 10 minutes or more per load.”
Even at full dryer capacity (292 pounds each), with the laundry processing about 50,000 pounds of linen daily, it translates to 28.5 fewer hours of drying time and energy savings.
“For some items, dry times have been cut in half. For sheets, it’s just a fraction of what it used to be, because you want to leave them a little moist before going through the ironers,” says Byrnes. “In fact, after the press, there’s little reason to put sheets into dryers other than to break the cake.”
“The name of the game in healthcare is to provide outstanding quality at the lowest possible cost,” says Daskalakis. “Laundry is a key cost component, and this system definitely helps.”
MOVING FORWARD, LOOKING BACK
Midwest Laundry hosted an open house for customers recently, a chance for all to see the new Lavatec system in action. For UC Health, Sodexo and Midwest people, it was also an opportunity to reflect on the magnitude of their collaborative accomplishment with Lavatec Laundry Technology.
“They were able to get the old tunnel removed, the entire new tunnel system in, up and running within 10 days,” says Byrnes. “They worked with us to keep everything under budget, including additional equipment. And no one was really affected at all in terms of linen deliveries.”
“From an owner’s perspective, it was seamless,” Daskalakis says.
Miss Part 1? Click HERE to read it.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].