Healthcare and medical-related facilities cannot be cleaned the same way a restaurant, store, or office building is cleaned.
Yes, the overall goal of ensuring a safe and clean environment that looks and feels good for employees and visitors is the same, but medical facility cleaning is a bit more complex due to the increased risk of healthcare-associated infections through the exposure of bodily fluids, other dangerous pathogens, and at ease healthcare cleaning procedures.
Healthcare-Associated Infection Transmission Can be Reduced with Proper Healthcare Cleaning
Medical facilities have a responsibility to create an environment where their employees and patients can feel safe. Federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services provide strict guidelines for the regular environmental cleaning needed to limit the spread of illness.
While COVID-19 outbreaks have increased the need for cleaning, many hospitals are still dealing with internal COVID outbreaks. Reporters and further investigations have attributed these frequent internal hospital outbreaks to decreased cleaning measures. This is just one example of why routine cleaning is important and how unenforced cleaning measures can have a negative ripple effect throughout your community.
Surfaces Are Often Ignored – At a Cost
Each year, hospital pathogens infect 1.4 million patients and cause 140,000 deaths in the United States and Europe alone. Although many of these dangerous particles can hang out in the air, some of them become attached to dry surfaces and survive for as long as five months!
Having every surface cleaned throughout your facility is important. Some areas that are often overlooked during medical facility cleaning include:
There's proof of how frequent surface wiping and proper sanitization can prove to be very successful in spreading germs and fighting against harmful viruses like COVID-19.
What Are the Three Levels of Cleaning Within a Healthcare Facility?
When discussing the best process for cleaning your healthcare facility, it's best to ensure your cleaning checklist is as comprehensive as possible. A large part of preserving your environment is cleaning both the in- and outpatient areas.
1. Routine Cleaning
Routine healthcare cleaning involves the routine disinfection and cleaning of rooms and facilities to keep up on removing medical waste to ensure patients are comfortable and safe with the routine sanitizing of surfaces throughout.
Routine cleaning tasks include:
- Spot cleaning walls, floors, and countertops
- Wiping down all high-touch surfaces
- Emptying trash if needed
- Gathering and removing medical waste
2. Terminal Cleaning
Terminal cleaning in healthcare settings is the detailed cleaning of a room after each use that produces a completely reset environment. This usually involves, but is not limited to:
- High to low wiping of a patient's room
- Proper disposal of used items
- Sweep and mopping of floors
- Bathroom cleaning
- Disinfection of environment
3. Scheduled Cleaning
Scheduled cleaning is a deep clean that reduces dust, germs, and general grime on low-touch surfaces and other areas throughout your facilities.
Scheduled cleaning should be performed weekly, monthly, and on a as needed basis to ensure your environment also looks great and presents a welcoming environment for patients and visitors alike. Some of the most common tasks done during scheduled cleaning include:
- Vacuuming
- Carpet care
- Floor maintenance
- Curtain cleaning
- Baseboard cleaning
- Window blind cleaning
- Vents
- Shelves
Professional Cleaning Companies Ensure Quality Results
Every healthcare facility, hospital, doctor's office, dental clinic, and so on is different, so it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly what may be missing in your routine, terminal, or scheduled cleaning of your facilities.
Outsourcing your medical cleaning tends to be the best choice for many because:
- Professional cleaning costs less than hiring new employees
- Your facilities will be ready for an inspection at anytime
- It reduces the chance of healthcare-associated infections
- It offers detailed top to bottom cleaning and disinfection
We're a Trusted Professional Cleaning Company for Medical Facilities Throughout Pearland
If you're searching for a cleaning company that you can trust in Pearland to handle your healthcare facility janitorial, deep-clean, or one-time services, ServiceMaster Commercial Cleaning by Enviro continues to be the best choice.
We're attentive, friendly, communicative, and dedicated to ensuring your medical facilities are cleaned per guidelines set forth by federal and local agencies. With our Pearland company, you'll also benefit from our:
ServiceMaster has been around for over 65 years and backs ServiceMaster Commercial Cleaning by Enviro. We rely on the same trusted systems, tools, and processes that have established ServiceMaster as an industry leader in cleaning and disinfecting commercial properties in various industries.
