NORTH AMERICA
Medico Professional Linen Service, a family-owned laundry company that has been providing healthcare linens and textiles in Southern California for more than 80 years, has earned a Hygienically Clean Healthcare recertification in Long Beach. The renewal of this certification reflects the continued commitment to laundry best management practices (BMPs) as verified by on-site inspection and their ability to produce hygienically clean fabrics as quantified by ongoing microbial testing.
The Hygienically Clean Healthcare certification confirms the organization's continued commitment to infection prevention, adherence to recognized industry standards, and processing of health textiles using BMPs as described in the quality assurance documentation, which is a focus for the evaluation of the Hygienically Clean inspectors
In addition to the Long Beach location, Medico's laundries in Los Angeles and South Gate, California are also certified for hygienically clean healthcare.
To get certification first, laundries pass three rounds of result-based microbial tests that indicate their processes are producing hygienically clean health textiles and reducing the presence of yeast, mold and harmful bacteria. You must also pass a facility inspection. To maintain their certification, they must pass quarterly tests to ensure that as laundry conditions change, such as water quality, fabric composition and wash chemistry, the quality of the products being washed is constant. The review takes place every two to three years.
This process eliminates subjectivity by focusing on results and outcomes verifying that the textiles cleaned in these facilities meet appropriate sanitary clean standards and BMPs for hospitals, surgery centers, doctor's offices, nursing homes and other medical facilities.
The Hygienically Clean Healthcare certification validates the effectiveness of laundries in protecting healthcare by reviewing quality control procedures in linen, uniform and facility services related to the handling of textiles containing blood and other potentially infectious materials.
Certified laundries use procedures, chemicals, and BMPs recognized by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instruments, the American National Standards Institute, and others . Introduced in 2012, Hygienically Clean Healthcare brought to North America the international cleanliness standards for bedding and clothing for healthcare, used worldwide by the Certification Association for Professional Textile Services and the European Committee for Standardization.
Objective experts in epidemiology, infection control, nursing, and other health professions work with laundromats to ensure certification continues to enforce the highest standards for making clean healthcare textiles.
"Congratulations to Medico on their recertification," said Joseph Ricci, President and CEO of TRSA. "This achievement shows their commitment to infection prevention and that their laundry is taking all possible steps to prevent human diseases."
Information on Hygienically Clean and other TRSA certification programs can be found under E: (Email protected).
