When Should Outpatient Facilities Outsource Medical Laundry Services?

With regard to outpatient clinics and centers, when deciding to outsource linens to a commercial healthcare laundry service with regard to cleaning and inventory management there are four areas to consider: competence, efficiency, work quality, and impact with onsite cleaning/management.

Competence

Ensure your laundry will always meet your service and delivery standards just by asking about:

The experience of the management team - do they have extensive experience in the commercial laundry business? Are generally they knowledgeable about the special concerns of medical facilities? Is the staff highly trained? What back-up support solutions are in place? How will broken machinery be repaired and how quickly to prevent downtime? What sending protocols are in place? What if there is an out-of-service vehicle or a driver calls in sick? How am i going to be impacted? Efficiency

A commercial healthcare laundry service is able to efficiently automate the cleaning process together with pass the cost-savings on to you.

How are the linens sorted upon arrival? What safety precautions will be in place? Is contamination decreased or eliminated? How is the linen tracked from start to finish? Are the wash/dry cycles independently programmable for each load? What energy, chemical, and water-conserving processes are in place? Will you discover consistent results? Will the linen life be extended? How often will you receive linens? Quality

As soon as cleaning and caring for healthcare linens is all you do, quality control is integral to meeting clientele expectations.

Is there controlled work-flow and air handling? Is process-control monitoring in place? How are the following assessed?

Whiteness (where applicable) Tensile strength Soil removal Bleach and/or other decontaminate effectiveness On-site Considerations

Washing healthcare linens on-site is a costly, labor intensive, and complicated process that can potentially detract from affected individual care if medically-trained staff are required to cleanse and monitor linen usage.

How quickly are you able to process vital linens? Are these linens acceptably clean? Are these lines acceptably decontaminated? What loss prevention activities are in place? How do water and power usage and labor impact your bottom line? Is your practice capable to provide staff with personal protective garments made from innovative textile fabrics such as Vestex? When considering the overall have an impact on of linen cleaning and management on an outpatient clinic or center, many doctors and/or practice managers determine that the costs do not benefit patients, staff, or the bottom line. By asking the hard doubts and exploring how commercial medical laundry services may benefit your practice, you will serve all properly.