Ensure your hospital’s leadership team understands the value laundry services bring to the patient care process to stay relevant and avoid budget cuts.
Stay Relevant: Tie Laundry Services to Patient Satisfaction
Those of us in the supplier industry know that laundry services are an important process woven into patient care in an acute care setting. Despite its impact on patient experience, it is common for hospitals to want to reduce the laundry and linen budget when operating margins are less than favorable, either by reducing workforce or by purchasing lower quality products.
So how do laundry services remain relevant?
Answer: Illustrate the link between laundry services and the patient experience.
Providing clean linen, patient apparel, and other patient care textiles can help build the psychological confidence of patients and visitors who enter a healthcare facility. By enhancing their perception of the quality of the services rendered by your laundry. Laundry services become an important component of patient care and patient satisfaction.
Here are some messages you can share to explain how clean, wrinkle-free, high-quality linen makes a difference for patients:
Clean linen assists in limiting infection cross-contamination.
Some linen items in a bed make up require more frequent changing than others. Progressive bed change policies now emphasize a “needs based” approach, i.e., only changing individual items when wet or soiled rather than a complete bed change on a rote schedule. While spread blankets are generally changed less frequently, items that come in direct contact with the patient, such as pillowcases, reusable incontinence underpads, and patient apparel, may be changed several times a day based on the patient’s condition. By replacing individual soiled linen items rather than making a complete bed change and following good hand hygiene protocols, nursing staff will limit the potential for exposure to harmful pathogens in a more cost-effective way.
Once soiled textiles are removed from patient care areas, proper washing and disinfecting will prepare them to be safely injected back into the linen and apparel circulating inventory. If your facility uses higher-quality durable textiles, they will have a greater ability to withstand the commercial laundering process required for proper disinfection without quickly wearing out like lower cost, lower quality products might.
Specially designed textiles may help prevent pressure injuries.
Unfortunately, many patients in hospitals find themselves spending most of their time in a hospital lying in bed due to illness or limited physical ability; this may put them at risk of developing pressure injuries (previously known as bed sores), which are injuries to the skin caused by unrelenting pressure for extended periods of time.
Ensuring patient sheets are clean, dry and wrinkle-free can help prevent pressure injuries. Believe it or not, something as small as a wrinkle in a bed sheet can irritate patient skin, leaving them vulnerable to skin breakdown. Timely replacement of damp, soiled textile items that are coming in contact with vulnerable patient skin is crucial, but using, soft, wrinkle-resistant materials will also help keep patient skin intact.
Patients are more comfortable with clean bedding.
Patient safety and comfort should be at the forefront of everything healthcare workers do. Every textile used for patient care should be selected for the quality and the comfort they impart to the patient. Patient-focused textiles, whether used for bedding or apparel, should wrap every patient in comfort and help them feel at ease while they heal.
Patients can pay close attention to the quality and cleanliness of the linens you provide them. Linens that are scratchy, threadbare, or stained do not create the top-quality, comfortable care environment the hospital wants to create for their patients. However, when patients enter a room with an inviting, fresh, soft bed with quality linens, it elevates their perception of the care, often leading to positive responses during patient surveys.
Don’t let leadership at the hospital forget how essential laundry services are to the patient care process. Stay relevant by inviting Encompass Group to help you find the quality products you need to increase laundry efficiency and extend product life with laundry solutions that will impress staff and patients alike.
Message me on LinkedIn or call 1-800-245-4636 today to discuss our portfolio of products to meet your needs.
