Cleanliness and hygiene never have been more important in keeping infection at bay than they are now during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are all kinds of websites and guides for the public: how to sanitize household items, how to disinfect groceries, how to wear a mask and even how to handle your mail.
There are all kinds of publicly available recommendations on protecting yourself and others from the coronavirus, but what do you do when you’re working in a hospital? How do you manage to disinfect surfaces and handle the infection when there’s a constant barrage of sick patients who need care?
Infection control in hospitals is crucial in these uncertain times. Healthcare professionals have enough to worry about already with patients to care for and New Jersey state healthcare mandates to follow. So what practices should you build into your infection control plan?
Here are a few considerations to keep your hospital as safe as possible.
Strict Hand Hygiene
Regular hand washing is one of the best ways to remove germs, keep from spreading germs and prevent yourself from getting sick. There is always proper protocol for healthcare professionals to wash their hands, and staff should be especially diligent during the pandemic.
What are the general guidelines for health professionals for best hand hygiene?
- Hands should be washed for at least 20 seconds with soap under the following scenarios:
- When hands are visibly soiled
- After caring for a person who has infectious diarrhea
- After known exposure to spores or the COVID-19 coronavirus
- An alcohol-based hand sanitizer should be used under the following scenarios:
- Before touching a patient.
- Before handling invasive medical devices.
- After touching a patient or a patient’s immediate environment.
- After coming in contact with blood, bodily fluids or contaminated surfaces.
- Immediately after removing gloves.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals also should follow these additional protocols from the CDC:
- Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with either a 60 or 70 percent isopropyl alcohol content. Unless hands are visibly soiled, this is preferred to soap and water in clinical situations as a result of evidence of better compliance.
- Hands should be washed for at least 20 seconds before eating, after using the restroom and when visibly soiled.
Follow PPE Precautions
No matter your infection control measures, the CDC states that personal protective equipment should be used appropriately, including gloves, mask and gown for all interactions that involve contact with a presumed infected person and/or that person’s environment. This should happen prior to room entry, and all PPE should be properly discarded before exiting the patient’s room to contain pathogens.
Many precautions must be taken when donning and removing PPE that has been exposed to pathogens. We know that there is a shortage of PPE for hospital staff, and so whatever precautions your facility is taking to reserve PPE also should be taken to ensure contamination is limited—even if masks must be reused.
Handle Textiles and Laundry With Care
According to Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the COVID-19 coronavirus may be viable for a few hours to a day on fabric. Because of its viability on fabrics, the CDC recommends handling textiles and laundry with great caution.
Per CDC recommendations, your infection control measures should include handling contaminated textiles and laundry with minimum agitation to prevent the virus from contaminating the air, surrounding surfaces and nearby people.
What other ways should textiles like blankets and towels be handled? The infection control program in your hospital also should include the following measures:
- Bag or otherwise contain all contaminated textiles at their point of use.
- Do not sort or pre-wash contaminated textiles in patient-care areas.
- Identify bags or containers of contaminated textiles with some means of communication (writing, color coding, etc.) to mark them as contaminated.
Regular Sanitizing Services for Infection Control
The infection control plan for your hospital should, without a doubt, include disinfecting services and infection control services to remove traces of the virus from your high-touch surfaces and exposed surfaces.
S&G Cleaning Services offers sanitizing services to do our best to protect your staff’s health and safety and do what we can to keep your team going. We know that the first line of defense against this pandemic is the work done by first responders in hospitals and clinics around the country, and here in New Jersey, we want to help keep our medical professionals healthy so they can do what they do best.
Our disinfecting and sanitizing services include emergency response remediation for areas of your hospital that have been affected by an outbreak. At each visit, our trained and fully equipped infection control team uses EPA-approved products to treat your building. These sanitizing products kill 99 percent of germs.
Our team will sanitize your hospital suited in head-to-toe environmental cleanup gear to protect themselves and you from infection. In keeping with the CDC recommendations for cleaning and disinfection, our cleaning technicians follow a three-step process to thoroughly clean and sanitize your facility:
- Cleaning and sanitizing hard surfaces
- Hand-wiping disinfecting of high-touch areas
- A complete disinfectant fogging with a food-safe, EPA-approved disinfectant that sanitizes from floor to ceiling
Working in a hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic, you can never be too careful. That’s why regular sanitizing services are a necessary step for infection control and prevention in your medical facility.
For infection control in hospitals, look for the professionals: the commercial cleaning teams that have been carefully sanitizing for years and have a well-developed system in place to protect your employees. We know the difference between “clean” and “disinfected,” and we can help keep the infection under control in your facility.
At S&G Cleaning Services, we have the expertise and the happy clients to prove our worth as a reliable, safe disinfecting service. Let us help keep your hospital clean and sterilized.
Want to learn more? Request a free estimate today.
