Long-Term Care Facilities Need Quality Healthcare Linen Services
- March 01, 2023
- Recent News
- Century Linen Services
Long-term care medical facilities face many challenges. One that’s largely understated is the need for consistently clean, quality linens for their residents. More than anybody, the elderly are susceptible to harmful microbes in their environment. They’re also some of the most sensitive to poor-quality, scratchy materials. To keep complications in your long-term care patients to a minimum, they need quality, professionally cared-for medical linens. However, it’s also important to find healthcare linen services you can trust.
What Bad Healthcare Linen Services Look Like
When a long-term medical facility isn’t partnered with the best provider, any number of unfortunate things can happen. Not only does a poor-quality provider endanger the health of patients, but it also potentially harms the facility’s day-to-day operations. Here’s what to expect from a bad provider:
Questionable Cleaning Practices
A facility not built with the intention of cleaning and transporting medical linens with the highest degree of cleanliness possible will not provide what medical facilities need. The standard of cleanliness required of medical linens is far greater than that of other industries. This, however, doesn’t prohibit laundry facilities built for those other industries from advertising and providing medical linen services.
For those providers, the same machines that process the tablecloths from your local steakhouse handle your patient’s bedding. There are a few problems with this arrangement:
- Lower requirements for achieving cleanliness
- Lower washing temperatures
- Weaker detergents and cleaning processes
- Non-hygienically clean work environments
- Non-hygienically clean transportation methods
Irregular, Incomplete, or Incorrect Orders
The lower standards of these facilities don’t stop at the processes; there are also the logistic shortcomings of these operations. Because the demands of their other served industries aren’t as powerful, it’s possible that their methods of service aren’t either. These shortcomings manifest in many ways including:
- Incorrect orders
- Late deliveries
- Lower quality products than expected
- Damaged or stained products
How to Tell a Good Medical Linen Service from a Bad One
While there’s a lot to look out for, there are also some things to look for in your medical linen provider.
Medical Industry Concentration
The right medical linen provider for your business will be just that, a medical linen provider. If medical linen is all your provider does, their standards will likely be where you need them to be. Not only that, but the quality of their product will likely be higher than it would be otherwise.
Accreditations
A medical linen provider that’s truly up for the task will have accreditations to show it. Because of the demands of medical linen, there are several organizations that provide badges of accreditation. These accreditations demonstrate adherence to industry standard materials, cleaning, training, facility maintenance, and transportation.
HLAC Accreditation
Century linen is a proud member of the HLAC Accredited community. HLAC Accreditation is achieved by passing a thorough inspection of a facility’s processes, systems, and procedures. It takes several factors into consideration: facility design, equipment, practices, training, protocols, and adherence to regulatory body requirements.
Length of Business
The amount of time a facility has been in business can also be a good indicator of reliability. With over 100 years of experience, Century Linen has a strong record of quality service to the medical community.
Contact Century Linen for Worry-Free Long-Term Care Linens
For more information, give us a call at (844) 383-6600 or ask about a free quote for service.
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