We all want a clean workplace and home, but it is even more important for hospitals and clinics to stay squeaky clean. Depending on why and for how long they’re there, patients can be a critically vulnerable population, not to mention all the staff working around the clock to keep them healthy. We owe it to all parties involved to keep places of medical care clean, safe and conducive to optimal health and wellness. But how does cleanliness actually affect healthcare facilities? Through healthcare-associated infections.
Healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) is a broad term covering many different infections from MRSA, MSSA, E.coli, and C.difficile. The only way to prevent these vicious diseases is to keep your facility as clean as possible. Consider MRSA. MRSA is primarily spread at hospitals or other healthcare settings and are typically associated with more invasive procedures, such as poorly-sanitized surgery equipment or inserting artificial joints. While in healthy people it tends to only cause mild skin problems, more vulnerable populations such as older adults or people with compromised immune systems may have far greater complications, including infections in the bloodstream or lungs.
Or take a look at C.difficile (C.diff). C.diff causes diarrhea and inflammation of the colon and is estimated to cause almost half a million illnesses in the United States each year, and, according to the Centers for Disease Control, 3/5 of those infections occur in healthcare contexts. While uncomfortable at its best, C.diff complications can even result in death, especially in vulnerable populations. Often more of a hassle than anything else, the potentially fatal consequences can be mitigated by properly cleaning your facilities.
While HCAIs are some of the most prominent cleanliness-preventable healthcare-related medical issues, other factors play into the cleanliness of healthcare facilities. For one, our own health practitioners can spread illness. 4 out of 10 healthcare workers profess to come to work when they’re sick, and patients are 5 times more likely to acquire an HCAI when exposed to a sick healthcare worker. While it may feel easy to pin the blame on unsafe workers, the reality of healthcare work (and work in general!) is that it’s nigh impossible to bring that rate down to 0%. You can offer staff and patients face masks to stop the oral spread of germs, but for the best chance at keeping your hospital or clinic clean, it’s critical to properly clean your facility to minimize illness transmission.
Other common cleanliness platitudes affect the medical environment of your healthcare facility. There’s a reason restaurants everywhere have a sign saying, “Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work“: it works. One study found that when medical staff’s compliance with proper hand hygiene increased, patient infection rates decreased. While promising, the study still notes that overall compliance with proper hygiene still only barely passed, with only 66% of providers consistently properly cleaning their hands.
While this type of intervention may be feasible at the level of hospital staff, ensuring patient compliance is close to impossible. Patients, on average, have less medical knowledge and may not understand the full impact of hygiene in their day to day life. Furthermore, even if people did accept the gravitas of handwashing, it would still be difficult to ensure children complied. If they get germs and spread them to their parents or others around them, germs will spread despite full efforts to stop them. A deep cleaning helps mitigate the unpredictability of all the patients that enter your establishment.
Beyond simple hand washing, medical staff is more and more recognizing the importance of general environmental cleanliness. Hand washing is a person-centric approach to cleanliness, but oftentimes we can’t pin down cleanliness-related concerns to only one person. Focusing on the general environment of your healthcare facility gives a more holistic perspective that is more likely to cover all your bases. However, environmental cleanliness is complicated by EPA guidelines dictating which cleaning supplies are used for which types of environmental hazards. To forgo the hassle of figuring out the correct supplies and avoid potentially harmful consequences of noncompliance, trust Allied Facility Care.
If you’re in the Dallas or Fort Worth area, Allied Facility Care is here to make sure your healthcare facility stays clean. Our detail-oriented and thorough technicians carefully follow health guidelines and standards. We’re even equipped with the Green Seal certification, forgoing dirty cleaning supplies for environment-friendly, sustainable alternatives, and as a local leader in cleaning services ranging from prominent area hospitals to small orthodontics clinics, we’re sure to deliver on our mission to provide you with the best service experience possible. Give us a call at (800) 966-4312 or get a free quote today.
