Our healthcare system is a truly remarkable and inspiring feat of modern medicine, with care being administered to a diverse population on a day-to-day basis. However, with so much unpredictability in the healthcare facility’s environment as of late, it is crucial to remain aware of the dangers that low-quality hospital cleaning introduces.
That said, not every hospital or healthcare facility’s prime focus is to provide their patients with a clean and sterile environment. But little do they know that cleanliness directly affects the healthcare facility’s ability to offer high-quality patient care.
On the other hand, healthcare facilities have seen a drastic rise in HAI (healthcare-associated infections) or the last decade. Healthcare-associated conditions are genuine, and they pose a severe threat to patients, employees, and other healthcare professionals working inside a medical facility.
Moreover, when healthcare facilities aren’t properly cleaned, HAI spread becomes a reality. So, it is of the utmost importance that medical facilities choose the best possible cleaning partner to ensure thorough sanitation and disinfection.
If they don’t, patient care quality will drastically go down, and their business will suffer. That said, if you’re still unsure whether or not you should prioritize hospital cleaning, listed below are a few dangers associated with low-quality hospital cleaning. Read them thoroughly to know the importance of hospital cleaning.
Increased spread of viruses and diseases
To promote cleanliness in your facility, hiring candidates who completed a masters in healthcare management is an excellent idea. This is a meaningful degree that equips them with the skills needed to effectively manage healthcare staff and understand the importance of improving cleanliness in a healthcare facility.
These candidates also understand how crucial it is to prevent the spread of viruses and diseases. It is a fact that an unsterile and unclean environment promotes the brooding of deadly viruses and disease. Not to mention, these viruses and diseases will spread more easily from one patient to another, resulting in a mini pandemic inside your medical facility.
When such a thing happens, you’ll be more liable to facing numerous issues, from unwanted lawsuits to less business to more complaints. Unfortunately, these things are hard to overcome when they happen and result in countless deaths that can be prevented in the first place.
That said, hiring well-educated management staff will allow you to prioritize hospital cleaning. For instance, hiring a managerial professional who has completed a or through a campus-based university will ensure that hospital cleanliness is always on the agenda.
Increased risk of hospital-acquired infections
HAIs( healthcare-associated infections) are highly dangerous to individuals who already have a compromised immune system. And exposing them to deadly, new pathogens compromises their health even more.
Some common types of health-associated infections include VRE, C. Difficile, MRSA, surgical site infections, and much more. When an individual with a weak immune system contracts these infections, it isn’t easy to cure them. Moreover, these infections are difficult to treat as they’ve built up resistance to antibiotics.
When you hire low-quality hospital cleaning services, you’re putting your patient’s lives at risk of serious medical complications. In fact, according to NCBI, HAIs account for 99,000 deaths and 1.7 million infections every year.
This can be easily prevented when you focus on keeping your medical facility’s environment clean. It will avoid the spread of disease during everyday medical practice.
Increased reliance on unavailable technology.
Another danger of low-quality hospital cleaning is the cleaning companies’ reliance on unavailable or inefficient technology. In the past few decades or so, technology has seen tons of advancements related to hospital cleaning. However, these technologies aren’t reliable enough to reduce the spread of disease or eliminate HAIs from a hospital setting.
But, some technology isn’t available in every part of the world, especially third-world countries, which struggle to cope with the rising number of patients and inadequate health care facilities. Not every hospital can afford them. As a result, there is a growing fear and people will start building their own germ-killing devices that might not be as effective as the original thing and will fail to do the job.
Higher risk of cross-contamination
Blood dripping from open wounds, sneezing, coughing, and vomiting are a few examples of the things happening inside a hospital. Once a patient’s condition improves, a lot of work still has to be done to ensure every piece of medical equipment and surface contaminated by micro-organisms and bacteria remains as sterile and clean as possible.
Sadly, hiring low-quality hospital cleaning services that fail to clean equipment and surfaces gives birth to cross-contamination. That said, hospital kitchens are common grounds for cross-contamination.
For example, Imagine someone handles raw chicken and then touches a towel without washing their hand. The towel then doesn’t get properly washed and goes to a patient’s room. They’ll use it and unintentionally pick up bacteria and germs and might get sick.
Or, imagine a surgeon sending off equipment to a cleaning service that doesn’t sterilize it properly, leading to cross-contamination and bloodborne diseases. So, it is crucial to hire high-quality hospital cleaning services to avoid cross-contamination and other cleaning issues as a whole. It will be a worthwhile investment.
Reduced safety
Another danger of low-quality hospital cleaning is reduced safety. Just imagine all the biomedical waste and hazardous materials that need to be thrown out and discarded every day. If a hospital is not following particular removal protocols, it can lead to an unsafe working environment and put the lives of the entire hospital staff at risk.
The same is the case for internal health and safety protocols, particularly when changing gloves and washing hands after medical procedures.
Therefore, your hospital needs to ensure high-quality standards to prevent the spread of diseases from bio-medical waste and materials, meaning hiring high-quality hospital cleaning services to ensure proper disposal of waste materials.
Lowered image as a medical facility
You can only maintain your hospital’s clean image by performing regular, periodic cleaning. And maintaining such an image day in and day out is vital to ensuring that you keep your doors open as a medical care provider.
Hiring high-quality janitorial or cleaning services allows you to maintain a positive image more efficiently – especially from your reception, bathrooms, examinations rooms to the waiting areas; hiring high-quality hospital cleaning services will ensure that every corner looks impeccable as possible.
Conclusion.
Keeping your hospital or medical facility requires maintaining the highest standards of cleanliness. Not to mention, it requires eliminating germs, bacteria, viruses, and pathogens from high contact areas and surfaces.