Laundry Services' Role in Long-Term Care

With the retirement and inevitable aging of the baby boomer demographic, the long-term care industry is seeing the beginnings of a boom that will potentially last several decades. This is exciting news for the dedicated healthcare workers who specialize in long-term and elder care, but it does pose some issues for facility managers, who are having to plan and account for future growth. One area where they must place particular concern is in their choice of laundry services.

Client Perception

Although there are many aspects of care that patents and their family members will be concerned with when choosing long-term care options (and whether to stay with the option they chose), one of the most quickly visible aspects is the quality and cleanliness of the facility's linens, towels, and garments. Clients believe that it is a simple thing for a facility to provide fresh, clean, and new linens to each patient, so long-term facilities are forced to live up to that perception, even though it is not always the case.

The Pratfalls of In-House Laundry

Some facilities opt to perform all of their laundering needs themselves, maintaining an on-premises laundry center. However, when you add residents' personal items and personal laundry needs to your facility's overall linen need, it quickly becomes difficult to maintain an in-house laundry center. The manpower and machine availability needed for both personal items and general linen requirements can be overwhelming if you are not fully prepared.

Hiring a Laundry Service

Hiring a laundry service can make a long-term care facility manager's life significantly easier. True, you will still need machines and manpower to ensure that residents' personal clothing and items are washed and cared for if that is an on-site offering, but bedding, towels, gowns, uniforms and other linens can be taken care of outside of your facility by experts. Professional healthcare laundry services are fully equipped to take on cleaning and maintaining your linen supply, no matter the size of your facility is or your demand level.

Professional laundry services stay in business because they are able to meet the demands your patients and their family members have for your facility's linens. A healthcare laundry service will provide your facility with a rotating supply of expertly cleaned and sanitized linens to ensure that your patients and their families are pleased. They will also keep you and your employees happy because they scan each piece of bedding and linen when it comes in for cleaning to ensure that it is still functioning at the level of quality that your facility demands. Any item that does not meet inspection is replaced by the service, meaning you do not have to spend extra funds on constantly replacing and refreshing your linen supply.

The Future of Healthcare Laundry

Although it's impossible to know for certain what the future brings, there are trends occurring in the healthcare laundry industry that offer us a glimpse at what the industry may look like 10, 20, or 30 years from now. We are already seeing improvements in linen technology and environmental friendliness, and those movements are expected to continue to grow. We also expect to see more involvement from the government in healthcare, which will naturally affect the medical laundry service industry.

The Government and Healthcare

Although there is quite a bit of disagreement on both sides of the political aisle about what the solution should be, most people agree that our healthcare system is dysfunctional and needs a major overhaul. No matter what that overhaul entails, it seems clear that the government will take a more active role in the management of healthcare and medical facilities. It is very likely that commercial laundry services will be highly controlled by the government if it takes on responsibility for the management of healthcare facilities.

The Environment

As time continues, lessening environmental impact has become increasingly important, especially in the medical laundry industry. New regulations and green standards are announced every day. We predict that regulations will drastically increase the overall efficiency of a commercial laundry, including new methods to reduce or eliminate all harmful chemical products. Water-reusing technology is not far from being commercially available, and biodegradable detergents are gaining potency with each passing day. These improvements in eco-friendliness will ultimately be great for workers' health and overall resource consumption.

The Linens Themselves

We are already seeing exciting new developments in the composition of hospital linen products that promise to decrease the chance of carrying disease, increase a patient's ability to heal, and lessen the likelihood of the patient developing skin issues like bed sores. The best part of these particular futuristic linens is that they dry much more quickly than traditional linens and do not require ironing to be ready for patient use. It is almost guaranteed that when these products become available, laundry services will add them to their stock. Not only do these new linens save the laundry time and money over the long run, but hospitals will also quickly begin demanding them because they will improve patient care.

Although the future is uncertain, many laundry industry experts have been preparing for these exciting industry changes. Ultimately increasing patient care and environmental stewardship, new standards promise to improve the industry as a whole. Governmental regulation may or may not further these innovations, but everyone is hopeful that if the government should become involved in the industry, it will only be for everyone's benefit.

Reversing the Disposables Trend

Since the advent of disposable textiles, most of the operating rooms across the United States, and even the world, have transitioned to using these single-use textile items almost exclusively. The reusable textile service industry has not supported this change, but convenience and a lack of information prevailed in the medical industry. Now, however, the disposable textiles trend is beginning to reverse.

Waste Production and Disposal

Environmental concerns have led the call to change, with many hospitals discovering that their environmental footprint and overall waste production is bloated because of their practice of using disposable textiles in the operating room. Thanks in large part to these operating room practices, each U.S. hospital patient currently generates just under 34 pounds of waste per day. This is a horrifying number when you realize that the bulk of that is considered potentially infectious medical waste, which complicates its removal and disposal.

Using reusable textiles in the operating room drastically decreases the amount of medical waste that is generated during surgical procedures. This in turn decreases the amount of waste hospitals produce overall, simultaneously decreasing their need for specialized medical waste removal and their environmental impact.

Sustainability

It seems self-evident that disposable goods are not environmentally sustainable, whereas reusable goods are significantly more so. For a long time, sustainability was not a concern hospitals or their patients had, but in a modern hospital, it is a perpetually growing concern. Reusable textiles substantially increase a hospital's sustainability, and can actually save hospitals money.

Reusable Textiles Are Safe

The largest resistance to reusable textiles has been from doctors and patients who are unaware that these types of textiles can be as safe as, if not safer than, single-use disposable textiles. When these textiles fell from grace, there was a genuine safety difference that doctors noticed. At that time, a single-use item could be guaranteed sterile, whereas a reusable item could not always be. Nowadays, reusable gowns and drapes meet or exceed protection standards that hospitals require. Modern healthcare laundry services are able to fully disinfect and sterilize the textiles they handle, something that laundries in the 1960s were not able to guarantee.

Education regarding the safety of reusable textiles, along with information about their environmental and cost reduction benefits, is beginning to spread among medical professionals and their patients. However, there is still a lot of work that proponents of reusable textiles must do to create an informed public. Once we re-educate Americans about the efficacy and safety of reusable hospital textiles, we should see a resurgence of reusable options and the reversal of the disposables trend.

Cleaning Medical Linens In House? Hire a Professional Linen Service and Redirect Staff Dollars

High standards of cleanliness in hospitals prevent the spread of bacteria and viruses among patients and healthcare providers. Studies have shown that hiring a professional cleaning service makes the hospital more sanitary and helps the hospital save money. When the hospital staff is responsible for cleaning medical linens in addition to all their healthcare tasks, the productivity of the hospital is reduced.

There is a ton of work to be done in the hospital, especially when patient occupancy is high. A professional cleaning service is better equipped to manage day-to-day linen cleaning and would free up overstretched staff to focus on more important healthcare tasks.

Reasons to Choose Professional Assistance

Before any person is approved to be a professional cleaner of healthcare linens, they must undergo intense training and acquire a license. Professional cleaners are trained on how to best clean and dispose of certain items, such as blood borne pathogens. This is helpful since it prevents the spread of pathogens and cross contamination in the hospital.

Professional cleaners have a lot experience to back up their training. This is important because in the process they deal with a lot of chemicals and are exposed to a variety of cleaning methods. Hospital linens vary in material and special care is required for each type. The hospital staff may not know the right cleaning method or proper cleaning agent to use when cleaning. Professional cleaners can help save and prolong the life and durability of hospital linens by using the right type of cleaning method.

The hospital will save on a lot of money by hiring a professional hospital cleaning service. In-house cleaning will require the hospital to buy and maintain equipment, keep inventory of supplies, and increase utility costs. This is a lot of money, since there are so many medical linens to be cleaned on a daily basis in a hospital. A cleaning agency will have its own equipment, thus reducing the need for the hospital to invest in cleaning equipment. The funds that would have been used for cleaning equipment, supplies and utilities could be invested in other areas of the hospital that need more attention.

How to Choose the Best Cleaning Agency

When looking for a medical linens cleaning agency, it is advisable to be very cautious. The last thing a hospital needs is all its medical linens carelessly destroyed by a faulty service provider. Remember that the reputation of any successful agency will sell itself. Start by asking around for references. Another hospital may be able to recommend an agency it has worked with in the pasted.

Experience is a necessary factor when looking to hire. If the agency staff has never been exposed to a hospital environment before then they may not be a good fit, no matter how much cleaning training they have. It is necessary to carry out an interview to be sure that the agency's method of cleaning will meet the cleaning requirements for healthcare linens.

Choose a cleaning agency that has worked with hospitals before. This is important because hospital linens require more expertise and attention compared to hotel linens. The professional cleaning service must be well-equipped with the knowledge and expertise to prevent the spreading of disease caused by insufficient cleaning practices.