Keeping a healthcare facility, such as a hospital or clinic, clean is vital to patient safety and the well-being of healthcare staff. After all, nobody would want to visit or work in a hospital or any other healthcare facility if the risk of infection is high because of an unclean and unsterile environment.
However, given the number of people who walk in and out of a healthcare facility daily, maintaining cleanliness standards can become challenging. Therefore, it is essential to implement simple yet effective methods that can help get the job done. Some practical hospital cleaning tips include:
Don’t forget to clean less frequently visited areas of the hospital
One thing that hospital administrators and managers forget to do is clean rooms and corners that are less frequently used. Unfortunately, missing these spaces can prove to be dangerous for a few reasons. First, these less regularly visited sites can become a breeding ground for deadly organisms that thrive in dirty environments. Secondly, these organisms can gradually spread throughout the entire hospital and contaminate every single room.
That said, to ensure such a thing never happens, you should make it your mission to clean your hospital thoroughly, leaving no corner untouched. Moreover, you must also develop a proper plan to ensure that cleanliness and safety procedures are in place. Providing additional training to the staff will be beneficial in this regard. You can encourage staff to enrol in an online masters of healthcare administration and quickly update their managerial know-how. Internet-based learning is an effective way to upskill staff with the latest and best organizational knowledge without them having to take too much time off from their professional responsibilities. Moreover, with an in-house team trained well enough, you will not need to outsource cleaning services.
Spread awareness among your workforce
Promote awareness about cleanliness and personal hygiene among your clinical and non-clinical staff. The more aware your workforce is, the more likely is it to keep the workspace and environment neat and clean. You can spread awareness by posting tips on the bulletin board, sending emails, or updating the hospital’s blog. Simple yet effective content can aid wonders in achieving cleanliness goals.
Keep high-touch surfaces clean
One of the essential hospital cleaning tips is disinfecting and cleaning high-touch surfaces and areas. Visitors, be it patients or their family members, will undoubtedly leave bacteria and germs everywhere they put their hands, so ensure that your cleaning staff handles high-contact surfaces first.
Some of these spots include bathroom taps, doorknobs, bathroom handrails, light switches, and bed rails. Cleaning these spots regularly will eliminate or reduce the chances of your healthcare workers and patients contracting harmful infectious diseases and illnesses. It would also help to place sanitizer dispensers near these areas and encourage people to use them as often as possible.
Properly dispose of waste
It is a must for your hospital cleaning staff to dispose of waste products properly. Therefore, disposable cleaning supplies, packaging, and used tissues, papers, or napkins should be bagged and thrown away in the trash can. While doing so, ensure that you wear disposal gloves before touching the outside or inside the bag to prevent cross-contamination. Moreover, ensure that the garbage bag isn’t filled to the brim to avoid spillage. Furthermore, don’t forget to disinfect your garbage cans and utilize liners to make garbage removal a lot easier.
However, it would be best if you also consider the thickness of the garbage bags themselves. Use garbage bags that are thick enough. Doing so will allow you to prevent punctures and tears. On the other hand, if you wish to dispose of wet contents, the garbage bag you use must be waterproof. Plus, don’t forget to double-up the garbage bags to prevent leakage.
Start from clean areas first and move on to dirty ones
Hospital cleaning staff usually make the mistake of cleaning dirty areas first, typically the bathroom, and leaving cleaner areas for later. Unfortunately, this practice increases the likelihood of spreading the pathogens you’ve encountered in the dirty areas to the clean ones.
Therefore, ask your cleaning staff to start from the healthiest patients’ rooms first and leave the sickest patients’ bathrooms last. Moreover, ask them to begin their cleaning routines from the highest point to the lowest and clean patients’ rooms from the inside first, then the outside. Doing so will make the process more effective, safer, and cost-effective since you won’t have to waste cleaning resources because you’ve made a mess by starting with the dirtiest area first.
Select the correct disinfectant
When purchasing disinfectants, consider the cleaning agent’s effectiveness and its safety profile to determine whether it will damage hospital surfaces or not. In addition, your hospital cleaning staff must also identify the time the disinfecting agent requires to be effective and achieve its purpose (killing germs, of course). Doing so will let you know whether the product is viable for use in the time you’ve allotted to the cleaning staff to get their work done. You can also opt for cheaper products or buy your selected ones in wholesale to get discounts and save a few bucks.
Takeaway
So, now you know how to uphold an effective hospital cleaning routine. That said, don’t forget to provide your hospital cleaning staff with the proper education, equipment, and training to ensure they clean every surface thoroughly and dispose of waste products safely. Following the hospital cleaning best practices mentioned above will allow you to keep your healthcare workers and patients safe and secure from infectious diseases and illnesses.
Tommy Williamson did his degree in psychology at the University of Edinburgh. He is interested in mental health and well-being.
