United States
The Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council (HLAC) provides an alternative to its traditional inspection process for healthcare laundries that want to maintain their HLAC accreditation status or become an HLAC-accredited laundry during the pandemic.
"Our HLAC Inspection Delivery Option (IDO) is a response to the various challenges of the COVID 19 crisis that have affected our traditional inspection process," said Regina A Baras, CEO of HLAC. "If inspections typically included an on-site administrative audit as well as a physical inspection of laundry that took a day or two of travel and time for our inspectors, IDO relocated the administrative audit to a virtual meeting between the laundry operators and the HLAC inspector At this virtual conference, the inspector will submit a report to the HLAC Accreditation Subcommittee, which will either recommend approval or request the remedial action required for accreditation. "
The costs are the same for either the traditional or alternative inspection delivery process.
"The process will still require a physical inspection on site," said Baras. "However, we postpone this inspection by up to a year. Depending on the outcome of the on-site inspection, the laundry either maintains its accreditation, initiates remediation to maintain its accreditation, or leaves its accreditation for non-compliance and revoked / or HLAC standards maintained. "
HLAC is a non-profit organization founded to inspect and accredit laundries that process health textiles for hospitals, nursing homes and other health care facilities.
Baras said with IDO that HLAC is trying to consider all aspects of its inspection process, the needs of the parties involved, and the challenging realities of the current environment.
"We know the following: The demand for HLAC accreditation has accelerated for three reasons: Firstly, HLAC-accredited laundries want to keep their status more than ever. Secondly, non-accredited laundries want to improve the quality of their processes with standards such as. Thirdly, the popularity of reusable is increasing Health textiles (HCTs), as well as finding a way to maintain the integrity of HCTs through the use of standards like ours. "
Baras continued: "In this scenario – and although the country is beginning to reopen – there is still the challenge of meeting these requirements in a crisis that has hampered travel with a number of uncertainties, including different government and local stays -in-place restrictions, availability of travel and accommodation, visiting rules and requirements for laundries etc. Our inspectors usually have to travel to get their work done, but what we did with IDO is the ability to postpone this trip laundries for now can still get their HLAC accreditation. "
According to Baras, HLAC has successfully piloted IDO to the satisfaction of its inspectors and laundry operators. "HLAC's IDO is a response to the pandemic challenges. Note that this is currently not our preferred process for conducting inspections. However, we can still provide an industry-recognized accreditation program That a laundry meets the highest standards for processing HCTs – for the benefit of its employees, its healthcare customers and patients. Today, HLAC accreditation is more important than ever. "
More information about HLAC can be found at www.hlacnet.org
