You are here

Three Mississippi Hospitals Collaborate to Utilize Shared Laundry Services

Trio taps Crown Healthcare Laundry Services

JACKSON, Miss. — In a move that is expected to achieve $8-9 million in cost savings and advance the Mississippi Healthcare Corridor in the Jackson metropolitan area, Baptist Health Systems, St. Dominic Hospital and the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) are collaborating to utilize shared laundry services through an agreement with Crown Healthcare Laundry Services, a nationally accredited private-sector healthcare laundry processor located in the state.

According to the participating hospitals, the laundry services agreement is expected to result in the large capital cost avoidance by eliminating the need to repair and replace aging laundry equipment.

This will position the hospitals to increase their focus on providing excellent healthcare, and their collaborative agreement increases the overall competitiveness and economic vitality of the Mississippi Healthcare Corridor, officials there say.

“This new services agreement is an example of these major healthcare institutions working together to gain efficiencies and spur development,” says Gov. Phil Bryant, who is focused on increasing the role of healthcare as an economic driver in Mississippi. “This willingness to collaborate is vital to continued growth and development within the Mississippi Healthcare Corridor.”

Bryant’s interest in collaboration among the metro-area hospitals stems from his 2012 visit to the Texas Medical Center (TMC) in Houston. The world’s largest medical complex, TMC is comprised of multiple participating hospitals and academic centers that collaborate in many areas, including infrastructure and support services.

Duane O’Neill, CEO of the Greater Jackson Chamber Partnership, says, “Our healthcare institutions have proven that while they are very competitive, they also believe in collaboration. The shared laundry allows more financial resources to focus on patient care, which is of the utmost importance for each hospital.”

The hospitals’ laundry services—approximately 11 million pounds annually—will be processed at Crown’s industrial-scale facility in Columbia, Miss. Crown officials expect to hire 30 to 35 additional employees at the Columbia plant as a result of the increased workload from these three contracts.

This month, Crown also plans to open a Jackson-area laundry distribution center within the Mississippi Healthcare Corridor to distribute the consolidated laundry from the three hospitals. This center is expected to employ 12 to15 people, with employment levels increasing as laundry volume dictates.

Although each hospital will have a separate contract with Crown, the group issued a joint request for proposals through the Greater Jackson Chamber Partnership and jointly negotiated the contract terms.

According to the leaders of the three healthcare institutions, the timing of the agreement could not have been better.

“Baptist has been pleased to work collaboratively with UMMC and St. Dominic’s to consolidate laundry services and in demonstrating that local healthcare providers are committed to working together to create efficiencies in a very complex healthcare environment,” says Chris Anderson, Baptist Health Systems CEO. “We are confident this will work well for each organization and its patients and look forward to other partnership efforts in the future.”

“After careful analysis, we determined that outsourcing our laundry services, in collaboration with other local hospitals, would free up physical space on our campus and allow for capital investment in new medical technology instead of replacing aging laundry equipment,” says Lester K. Diamond, St. Dominic Hospital president. “It would also be an important step in creating greater collaboration for future development in the Mississippi Healthcare Corridor.”

Dr. LouAnn Woodward, UMMC vice chancellor for health affairs, adds, “The hospital’s laundry equipment is nearing the end of its useful life. By shifting laundry operations to a third party, we can realize a substantial savings on capital investment in new equipment, and the space occupied by our laundry facilities on campus can be repurposed for other uses. By unifying our laundry services, UMMC, Baptist and St. Dominic’s can allocate more resources to patient care.”

The amount of laundry managed at each of the institutions’ respective on-campus facilities is significant, and the costs of repairing or replacing laundry equipment, along with the service costs of processing clean laundry and linen for each of the institutions’ main campus and satellite clinics throughout the state, has rendered the provision of laundry services untenable compared to more efficient alternatives.

Baptist Health Systems processes 4 million pounds of laundry at its campus facility each year, while St. Dominic Hospital handles 2.7 million pounds and UMMC processes 4.2 million pounds (UMMC-Grenada maintains its own laundry facilities and is not included in this contract).

The five-mile Mississippi Healthcare Corridor links Interstate 55 and Interstate 220 and includes most of the area’s academic and medical institutions. Anchored by the Jackson Medical Mall Thad Cochran Center, the corridor is dedicated to providing the finest medical care and education throughout the Southeast while hosting a biomedical research enterprise that fosters innovations and enhances applied therapies nationwide.

Aside from its industrial-scale facility in Columbia, Crown Healthcare Laundry Services also boasts laundry processing facilities in Selma, Ala.; Quitman, Ga.; and Pensacola, Fla. In the event of an emergency disruption in service at the Columbia plant, laundry service would be managed at one of Crown’s other facilities, preventing any disruption of laundry and linen services to the three healthcare institutions.

Crown Health Care Laundry Services logo

Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].