Infection Control Standards for Laundry
You may hear the words “Infection Control” when deciding on quality linen and laundry service for your medical facility. Everyone values a high standards system when it comes to linen services, but why is infection control really important?
Here are reasons why infection control is important:
- Employee health and safety
- Product integrity
- Quality improvement
- Process control
What is the fundamental stepping stone for these standards? OSHA knows. There are some overall requirements which OSHA prefers in businesses which handle soiled linen. These standards are beneficial for the overall health and wellbeing for companies and their employees and customers.
These are some of the requirements set by OSHA:
- Written Exposure Plan
- Exposure Determination
- Universal Precautions
- Training new employees before they begin working with contaminated linen
- Documented training annual refreshers
OSHA also requires the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), which includes gowns, gloves, and sometimes face shields based on state of business. Now how can your business check if your linen service is providing products of the highest quality in health and infection control? Many businesses use the method of ATP Testing. ATP Testing is a simple, quick task where:
- Hospitals routinely use ATP testing to measure the effectiveness of cleaning protocols and chemicals
- Rapidly measuring actively growing microorganisms are detected through the use of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) Alternate anti-microbial innovations include:
- Copper infused
- Silver infused
- Anti-microbial treatments
Infection Control and safety is a serious issue when deciding on a quality linen and laundry service. Although it may be cheaper to go with a service of lesser quality, it is more beneficial to decide on a company which routinely strives in following all of OSHA’s guidelines in handling soiled linen and providing the utmost in infection control. This will protect the safety of your employees, visitors, and clients.
Medico Linen Service is the company to contact when in need of a quality service. We take pride in our high grade sanitation process and our infection control standards. Contact us today at 800-464-6334 and you will get in touch with our qualified representatives ASAP!