The potential hazards and risks to nursing home residents and staff found in the facility laundry can be very real threats.
“Cross-contamination continues to be a concern with infection prevention and control related to laundry handling,” said Heather Hutson, RN, IP-BC, a board-certified infection preventionist. “Direct care staff have a long list of tasks to complete in a short time frame, and without proper and ongoing education and oversight from the IP, cross-contamination is often the result.”
John Scherberger, an expert in healthcare risk mitigation and advisory member of the Environmental Services Optimization Playbook, said nursing homes shouldn’t attempt to do laundry if they don’t have the full necessary capabilities or training.
Nursing homes “are not immune from laundry concerns and the problems non-hygienic healthcare textiles present,” he said.“In many on-premise laundries, for example, laundry carts are used to collect garbage and trash and transport clean [textiles] throughout a facility.” Often, those textiles are not thoroughly dried, and after cleaning are often handled ungloved and allowed to touch floors. There also are insufficient checks and balances to ensure textiles are hygienically clean.
Not surprisingly, workforce issues have only compounded the problems.
“The risk of cross-contamination increases when corners are cut, and staff members may not adhere to the necessary protocols for handling contaminated items,” said
Hutson. “This challenge requires addressing time pressures, improving staff awareness, and reinforcing strict procedures.”
Compounding matters is that “too many facilities don’t have full-time IPs, and despite the COVID pandemic, laundry processing operations and practices have remained relatively [unimproved]” Scherberger noted.
When looking for ways to mitigate costs and lengthen the life of textiles, he added, facilities “have no better allies than the chemical companies at the forefront of improving the chemicals, reducing the number of chemicals, reducing the dependence on bleach to disinfect HCTs, improving wastewater quality and reducing the necessity of high-water temperatures needed.
