United States
Up To Date Laundry, Baltimore, has again received Hygienic Clean (HC) Healthcare certification, demonstrating their commitment to best management practices (BMPs) in laundry, as evidenced by an on-site inspection, and their ability to manufacture hygienically testing of cleaner textiles, which is quantified by continuous microbial quantification, reflects testing.
Up-To-Date was first certified in 2014. The recertification 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, a focus for the evaluation of hygiene inspectors. The independent external control must also confirm essential evidence that:
• Employees are adequately trained and protected
• Managers understand regulatory requirements
• OSHA compliant
• Physical facility works effectively
To earn certification, laundries go through three rounds of result-based microbial tests that indicate that their processes are producing hygienically clean textiles for healthcare and are free from the presence of yeast, mold and harmful bacteria. They also have to pass a tax audit. To maintain their certification, they must pass quarterly tests to ensure that the quality of the laundered products is consistently maintained as wash conditions change, such as water quality, fabric composition and wash chemistry. A new check takes place every two to three years.
This process eliminates subjectivity by focusing on outcomes and results that confirm that the textiles cleaned in these facilities meet appropriate sanitary clean standards and BMPs for hospitals, operation centers, doctor's offices, nursing homes and other medical facilities.
The Hygienic Clean Healthcare certification confirms the effectiveness of laundries in protecting health processes by reviewing quality control procedures in laundry, uniform and facility services related to the handling of textiles containing blood and other potentially infectious materials.
Certified laundries use processes, chemicals, and BMPs recognized by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, American National Standards Institute, and others . Introduced in 2012, Hygienic Clean Healthcare brought to North America the international cleanliness standards for health linen and apparel 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 sanitary laundries to ensure that certification continues to enforce the highest standards for making clean health textiles.
"Congratulations to Up To Date Laundry on their recertification," said Joseph Ricci, President and CEO of TRSA. "This success demonstrates their continued commitment to infection prevention and to ensuring that their laundries take all possible steps to prevent human disease."
To get access to certification standards and to learn more about the Hygienic Clean Advisory Board, visit www.hygienicclean.org
