There is more to hospital cleanliness than preventing infection and maintaining a sterile environment for both patients and staff. Cleanliness is also critical to the first impressions your healthcare facility makes to patients and visitors.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) places environmental contamination in healthcare facilities at the center of the transmission of healthcare-associated infections(HAIs). This happens when people contact contaminated surfaces or when someone in the facility touches a contaminated surface and then transfers the disease-causing microorganisms to a patient.
At Kohl Building Maintenance (KohlBM), we understand that maintaining a clean, healthy environment in your healthcare facility to the highest standards is critical to preventing the spread of germs, viruses, bacteria, and pathogens. What’s more, hygiene sparks happiness in your patients and employees and influences glowing customer reviews on industry-specific review sites. In this recognition, cleaning professionals at Kohl Building Maintenance remain committed to delivering high-quality hospital cleaning services in Los Angeles.
In this post, we are going to discuss the essentials of hospital cleaning. But if you want to schedule an appointment now, please contact us at 818-882-2600.
Let us dive in.
Table of Contents
- The Importance of Documentation in Medical Cleaning
- Recommended Hospital Cleaning Products, Supplies, and Equipment
- Ideal Properties for Cleaning Products and Disinfectants
- Medical Cleaning Supplies and Equipment
- Best Hospital Cleaning Strategies
- Outsourcing Medical Cleaning Services
- Hospital Cleaning Services Near Me: Try the Kohl Building Maintenance Difference
The Importance of Documentation in Medical Cleaning
Documentation is central to formulating and implementing an effective cleaning program in your healthcare center. A famous document is a cleaning policy that specifies:
- Training requirements and performance standards for cleaning staff
- Methods, frequency, and team responsible for cleaning specific patient care areas and equipment
- Approved cleaning supplies, products, equipment, and necessary PPE
- Monitoring methods and frequency
It is also essential to develop facility-specific standard operating procedures(SOPs) for each environmental cleaning task. Not only that, but also ensure they are readily available to the cleaning staff and supervisors. If you outsource medical cleaning to a contracting company, furnish them with your SOPs, or at least verify that the company’s SOPs align with your facility’s policies.
Your SOPs document should define the specific equipment and supplies needed, preparatory steps, and the step-by-step instructions on the cleaning process. You also want to consider your cleaning staff’s literacy levels and preferred language to ensure every involved party can understand the instructions. You can leverage infographics to present an easy-to-understand message.
Cleaning logs can help with the daily workflow for your cleaning staff. The logs should specify the location, cleaning session, date, and cleaning staff’s name. Additionally, they should be available in central spots or where the cleaning tasks occur for easy access by the cleaning staff and cleaning supervisors.
Our well-trained and properly supervised cleaning staff adhere to medical cleaning standards and procedures, ensuring your staff and patients have the clean, safe, and healthy environment they desire.
Recommended Hospital Cleaning Products, Supplies, and Equipment
There are several kinds of medical cleaning products, with distinct properties, pros, and cons. But remember, chemical products can potentially harm patients and people working in your facility. This section will dig into the recommended properties and best practices for hospital cleaning products and equipment.
Ideal Properties for Cleaning Products and Disinfectants
CDC recommends the following properties for all hospital environment cleaning products:
- Easy to use: The product should be easy to use and easy to understand directions for preparation.
- Nontoxic: The cleaning product should not irritate any individual’s skin or mucus membranes in the facility.
- Easily soluble in cold and warm water
- Economical: Cleaning products should not cost an arm and leg
- Acceptable odor: Avoid products with offensive odors
- Environmentally friendly: The product should not contribute to environmental pollution when disposed of.
Encourage your cleaning staff to use EPA-approved disinfectants that can destroy a wide range of infectious agents, including pathogens that cause HAIs. The product should keep the treated surface wet long enough to fulfill the recommended contact times. Still, it should act fast in a single application.
You also want to use disinfectants that are compatible with common surfaces and equipment in your facility. What’s more, the product should be non-flammable and contain some cleaning properties.
When we mention cleaning products, we refer to products used to remove organic material, including body fluids, dirt, oil, ad grease. Choose easily soluble cleaning products with pH ranging between 6 and 8.
Do not use disinfectants as a substitute for hospital cleaning products. Disinfect surfaces only after cleaning. However, available on the market today are detergent-disinfectant products that clean and disinfect surfaces in one step.
Kohl Building Maintenance’s green hospital cleaning services incorporate environmentally friendly products and procedures to ensure a greener environment in your facility.
Medical Cleaning Supplies and Equipment
Essential hospital cleaning supplies and equipment include:
- Surface cleaning supplies: Portable containers and surface cleaning cloths
- Floor cleaning supplies: Buckets, mops, and wet floor signs
Typically, cleaning supplies and equipment are generally reusable. But some tasks can be done with disposable supplies. Hospital cleaning equipment should be suitable for the intended purpose, cleaned and stored dry in between uses, and used and maintained properly.
CDC recommends cotton and microfiber cleaning cloths for cleaning surfaces in healthcare facilities. Microfiber absorbs more dirt and microorganisms than cotton. However, microfiber cloths are typically incompatible with disinfectants because they are vulnerable to damage by high pH.
An alternative to cotton or microfiber cloths is disinfectant or detergent-disinfectant wipes– ready-to-use wipes saturated with a cleaning or disinfectant product.
Best Hospital Cleaning Strategies
Ensure your cleaning staff adopts the following strategies for cleaning healthcare facilities:
- Start with the cleaner surfaces: Your cleaning staff should proceed from cleaner to dirtier spots to avoid spreading microorganisms and dirt, for example, cleaning patient zones before patient toilets.
- High to bottom: Have your cleaners proceed from high to low surfaces to prevent microorganisms and dirt from contaminating already cleaned surfaces, for example, cleaning floors last or cleaning bed rails before bed legs.
- Clean in an organized fashion: Advise your cleaning staff always to proceed systematically to avoid missing some areas- for instance, right to the left.
Best practices for cleaning hospital surfaces include:
- Using fresh cleaning cloth in each cleaning session
- Changing soiled clothes for new, wetted cloth
- Using a new cleaning cloth for each patient bed when cleaning surfaces in higher-risk areas
- Not leaving soiled cleaning cloths in buckets.
- Not shaking cleaning cloths- they disperse droplets and dust that could contain microorganisms.
Outsourcing Medical Cleaning Services
Staying on top of cleanliness in your healthcare can be pretty challenging- It makes sense to outsource healthcare cleaning tasks.
Outsourcing cleaning duties frees up the time your staff members need to focus on their primary roles in your healthcare facility- more work gets done, and patients get served better. Chances are a dedicated cleaning service uses the latest medical cleaning technology, products, and procedures, from green cleaning solutions to high-powered floor buffers.
When hiring hospital cleaning services, look for a reliable company with well-trained and experienced professionals. Work with a cleaning company that is flexible enough to accommodate changing customer needs. For example, if you need more cleaners daily, the company should be able to provide the required cleaning staff.
Hospital Cleaning Services Near Me: Try the Kohl Building Maintenance Difference
At Kohl Building Maintenance, we focus our energy and resources on keeping your healthcare facility in the best shape possible. We have highly trained experts on board who can adopt medical cleaning strategies accordingly and do thorough sanitation to ensure a risk-free environment for your patients, employees, and staff. What’s more, we use eco-friendly products to prevent possible risks to our team’s well-being and your patients and workers.
Our commitment to 100% customer satisfaction is also evident in our quick turnaround times and flexible cleaning schedules that cause minimal to zero disruption to your facility’s operations. Call us today at 818-882-2600 or fill our contact form to get the convenience you have always desired for hospital cleaning services in Los Angeles.