Most administrators in the healthcare industry know that the appearance of their facilities -- especially how well they are cleaned and maintained -- can affect patients' perception of these facilities.
A clean, well-maintained and fresh smelling medical center helps patients relax and reinforces the perception that they will receive excellent care at the facility. However, an inferior indoor environment can diminish this perception, leaving patients concerned about the care they will receive.
'In many ways, it is psychological,' says Walt Johnson, regional vice president of Medi-Dyn Inc., Englewood, Colorado, a corporation that provides customized cleaning programs for 55 hospitals in 15 different states. 'But in reality, for the safety, security, physical comfort, and health of the patient, a medical facility must not only be clean but look and smell clean as well.'
Johnson should know. Having worked for Medi-Dyn for more than 25 years, he understands not only how important cleaning is for a medical facility but also the perception it can create for patients.
Tackling a malodorous problem
Johnson says that he has encountered all kinds of cleaning challenges in his 25 years of taking care of hospitals. 'Sometimes, even with the best of care and cleaning attention, a problem persists,' says Johnson. 'We had just such a problem at one of our older hos pital facilities.'
The hospital Johnson is referring to had a persistent and very unpleasant smell emanating from some of the public restrooms -- even after they had been detail cleaned using the most efficient cleaning chemicals and restroom hand tools available.
'We just could not get the odors out -- until we tried the Kaivac No-Touch Cleaning™ system,' he says. With the Kaivac No-Touch Cleaning system, cleaning chemicals -- most of which are now Green Seal certified -- are applied to restroom fixtures, floors, walls, and grout and tile as well as partitions. After sufficient dwell time, the areas ar e rinsed, which loosens and helps remove soils. A built-in wet/vac system vacuums up these soils and contaminants, totally removing them from the restroom and helping to eliminate odor-causing germs and bacteria.
'The entire process is much faster than using conventional restroom cleaning hand tools,' says Johnson. 'And the quality of cleaning is dramatic. As soon as we finished one of the problem restrooms, the odor was essentially gone and the restroom really looked great.'
Taking the Kaivac on the road
Because the results at the problem facility were so successful, Johnson decided to take the Kaivac equipment on the road to see how well it performed in different facilities under different conditions. The system was used at hospitals in Colorado, Montana, and Kentucky.
'We used the no-touch system to clean much more than just restrooms,' he says. 'We cleaned walls, stairs, floors in heavily-used kitchens and cafeterias, trash shoots, even garbage dumpsters. They all came out sparkling clean.'
Because the results have been so unbeatable, Medi-Dyn decided, at Johnson's suggestion, to purchase several more Kaivac machines. 'Our goal is to have one Kaivac machine at every location,' he says. 'We want to use them everywhere, as much as we can, and for one simple reason: wherever we use the Kaivac No-Touch Cleaning system, the results are phenomenal.'