How to Keep a Medical Facility Clean
Keeping a medical facility clean, no matter the size is a full-time job. Microbes and dangerous pathogens work round-the-clock. The risks of cross-contamination are as constant as the barrage of patients. Wondering how to keep a medical facility clean?
What to Focus On
Being thorough and efficient is a must when cleaning a medical facility. Knowing what to do and in what order to do it will speed up the cleaning process and lead to a simple routine. Here are some high-priority areas to focus your efforts:
Floor Care
There are many areas that are crucial to the overall hygiene of a healthcare facility. Facility managers inject the majority of the cleaning and disinfecting efforts into the obvious areas. These include restrooms, patient rooms, common areas like waiting rooms, and high-touch areas like door handles and elevator buttons.
Floors, however, are far too often neglected. Floors do not get the same kind of crucial and meticulous care that they deserve. And this is a dangerous oversight. Healthcare facilities have some of the dirtiest floors. Hospital floors, for instance, have been found to be a hotbed for bacteria and other dangerous pathogens including antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
When it comes to keeping your facility’s floors clean and safe, having the right tools are essential.
Floor Mats
Healthcare floors require more than just floor mats. For better, more sufficient protection and care, your facility requires high-quality floors and expert floor mat maintenance. Your floor mats are, after all, your floor’s first barrier.
- Floor Mat Type and Quality. The standards for floor mat quality are increased in healthcare. Your facility’s floor mats should provide scraping and cleaning functions. This ensures that particulates and microbes do not get past the entrance areas so they don’t get spread around. Second, your floor mats should be of superior durability. They should be able to withstand heavy foot traffic and the intense laundering they would require.
- The Importance of Proper Floor Mat Maintenance. Floor mats exposed to microbes, bacteria, and viruses used in a healthcare setting must be treated thoroughly. Proper isolation and packaging are essential. Additionally, they should be disinfected in a facility that fully understands the requirements of healthcare disinfection.
Dust Control
Keeping your facility’s floors clean does not stop with halting microbes in their tracks. It should also be about effectively removing them. The right floor mops are some of your most crucial tools.
- Different Mops for Different Areas of Need. Different types of floor mops offer different types of cleanliness for your facility. Your mop arsenal should include supplies for different types of cleaning and different locations within your facility. Wet mops, for instance, are your best tools for disinfecting. Your dust or dry mops ensure that your floors are sufficiently dry. Moisture, after all, provides an ideal breeding ground for harmful pathogens. For more critical areas, you need the power of microfiber mops that can pick up smaller dust particulates as well as germs.
- Mop Maintenance. Like floor mats, your mopheads need healthcare-specific maintenance. Because they pick up a myriad of things, including dangerous bacteria on the floor, they need proper handling and even more intensive disinfection. Otherwise, they will be tools for spreading microbes!
Boost Your Medical Facility Cleanliness with Medico
Medico knows how to keep a medical facility clean! Let our environmental products help you achieve the right kind of cleanliness for your healthcare facility! Call us at 1-800-464-6334 to learn more about our product selections and services. You may also contact us by filling out this form. A representative will get back to you shortly!
