Are you aware of the hidden danger to your medical center?
You may be focused on hiring the best doctors, advertising to attract new patients, or expanding in size. But, what you should be focusing on is medical office cleaning.
It’s a complex task that is strictly guided by workplace health and safety laws. If your center isn’t up to standard, you can be at serious risk.
How can you protect your clinic? The answer is simple—hire professional medical cleaners who are experienced in medical cleaning and can do the job up to the standards required.
Read on to learn the value of hiring trained medical cleaners, and the risks to your medical center if you don’t.
Deliver the Best Experience for Your Patients
Your patients and clients expect your medical office to be as clean and tidy as possible. After all, they are often coming in because they are unwell. The last thing they want is to catch more illnesses or spread their illness to others from unhygienic practices.
If your office isn’t clean, patients are not likely to come back and will not refer your clients to family or friends, meaning you’ve lost a valuable way of attracting new clients, through referrals and word of mouth.
You’re also likely to lose staff and physicians, as they won’t be comfortable working in a potentially unsafe work environment.
This includes not just the medical treatment rooms but also your clinic’s bathrooms, waiting areas, lobby, and the kids’ play area. First impressions matter to new patients. You need your office to immediately stand out, otherwise, you may be lost to your competitors.
Medical Office Cleaning Staff Are Qualified
Medical office cleaners have undergone additional training that you won’t find from normal office cleaners or casual staff.
The complexities and health issues involved in cleaning medical centers mean cleaning staff need to have a deep understanding of controlling the spread of disease, bacteria, and sterilization. Medical offices also contain a lot of biohazardous materials, which require special care.
All surfaces and touchpoints in medical offices also need regular cleaning to prevent the spread of potentially serious germs, viruses, not just for general cleanliness.
Why take the risk of hiring untrained cleaners? While you may save a few dollars in the short term, it will no doubt cost you greatly in the long term.
Look for cleaning staff who have undertaken training from one of the following safety organizations:
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
- Centre for Disease Control (CDC)
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
Helps Your Clinic Adhere to OHS Standards
The OHSA has set guidelines for cleanliness in medical and dental offices. If your office isn’t maintained to the highest possible standard, you could be found in breach of the regulations. This has serious consequences for your business.
These include:
- Standards for eliminating bloodborne pathogen spread, including proper disposal of all medical waste products.
- Securely managing, using, and disposing of all hazardous chemicals, such as sterilizing alcohol, disinfectants, and anesthetics.
- Reducing exposure to radiation
- Safely working with electrical medical devices and equipment
Ensure Your Clinic Meets the Bloodborne Pathogens Standard
Routine blood work is a common daily task in almost all medical offices. But, it can be one of the biggest health risks if not managed correctly, leading to disease spread in both staff and other patients of the clinic.
Contaminated items like needles and gloves cannot simply be thrown into the trash, they need to be safely disposed of. All staff, including the cleaning team, must know how to handle and dispose of bloodborne waste and equipment.
Learn more here about bloodborne pathology services and equipment safety in your workplace.
If a possible exposure has occurred, a report must be immediately filed with the OHSA and all individuals should seek medical advice,
Safely Handling Hazardous Materials
Your cleaning team must know how to safely work with and dispose of hazardous materials. Cleaning products used for sterilization in medical centers can sometimes be dangerous to the health of the user, if not handled correctly.
Medical offices also contain risky items such as anesthetic, mercury, and pharmaceutical drugs which legally must be disposed of in particular ways.
As you can see, the many unique requirements for cleaning medical offices to meet OHS requirements mean a specialized set of skills is needed.
To make sure you are compliant, hire trained medical cleaners who know the guidelines well and can clean to the highest standard.
Your Staff Can Focus on Their Tasks
Medical and administration staff are there to perform specific duties in your medical office, not to double as cleaners.
Although it can seem an easy way to save money at first, having your staff double as cleaners takes away from the time they should be using on their allocated tasks. Despite working in the medical field, they are not likely to be trained in the details of medical cleaning. This means your facility will not be as clean as it should be.
Save Money and Time
Once you’ve put in the groundwork of finding an experienced and reliable cleaning company, your business is on track to saving both time and money.
The investment in a professional cleaning company means you don’t need to worry about cleaning. You’ll have peace of mind that this is now taken care of, allowing you to focus on other urgent business tasks.
You also won’t be at risk of losing customers, staff, or subject to expensive fines for being in breach of health and safety codes.
Protect Your Office Today
As you can see, the added safety challenges that present in medical offices mean that medical office cleaning should always be done by trained professionals. They understand the risks and the requirement of OHS regulations.
Hire specialized cleaners today to make sure your medical center is operating at the highest possible level of sanitation.
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