Like everyone else in our community, we in the aged care sector are putting in-place measures to reduce the spread of harmful viral contaminants that can cause gastroenteritis and (of-course) the corona virus.
With this in mind we wanted to provide our readers with information that can clarify and assist in your laundry operation.
Below is a guide to effective laundry practice in an aged care environment.
Collection of soiled laundry
The correct collection of soiled laundry throughout the facility is the first stage of ensuring that laundry is pre-sorted and identified appropriately.
Always place laundry items in their designated bag (skip) this ensures that linen, personals and heavily soiled items are separated and can then be each laundered exactly the way they should be.
Processing soiled laundry
- All heavily soiled or infectious laundry should be laundered as soon as possible.
- Ensure that you use appropriate PPE when processing soiled laundry. PPE can include gloves, apron, mask and eyewear.
- Avoid emptying and sorting bags of soiled linen prior to the wash process. Pre-sorting during the collection stage enables you to not have to sort soiled laundry.
- The use of soluseam or related bags for heavily soiled items is a good practice as it results in not having to open the bag and handle potentially infectious laundry.
Use the correct wash cycle
- Ensure you choose the appropriate wash cycle that suits the type of laundry you’re doing.
- If you have bags of heavily-soiled laundry then ensure that you choose the program that processes heavily soiled items.
- A lot of our clients have our sluice capable washers which is ideal for aged care laundry. It is best practice to use the sluice or heavily soiled programs for such soiled laundry.
- Each program on our washers is programmed to disinfect.
- Disinfection is either by Thermal disinfection or Ozone disinfection. Both methods are effective at killing all bacteria and viruses including the Coronavirus.
Drying
- Wash your hands prior to unloading a washer.
- Whilst unloading the washer, check for items that may still have stains on them. These items need to be removed from this batch before going into the dryer. Drying an item that has a stain on it will bake the stain in.
- Always use a trolley to transfer clean, wet laundry from washer to dryer.
- Ensure you place clean wet laundry in the matching capacity dryer for that washer.
Distribution
- Fold and hang personals straight onto the personals trolley to minimise handling and secondary placement of items within the laundry.
- The use of appropriate linen and personal distribution trolleys is key to an efficient distribution system.
- Ensure that you wash your hands prior to delivering any laundry throughout the facility.
Regular Maintenance
- Regular maintenance of laundry equipment is important to ensure that it is working properly and effectively.
- Replacing equipment swiftly at the end of the lifecycle will reduce downtime in the laundry to maintain an efficient and clean laundry area.
By following best practices, facilities can help to minimize the risk of transmission of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases through contaminated laundry items and promote the safety and well-being of both employees and customers.
