Get answers to some of our more frequent questions about cleaning healthcare facilities.
At KleenMark, we’ve helped healthcare organizations and hospitals across the Midwest keep their facilities safe and clean for 60 years. And when you have decades of knowledge and experience, you can’t help but want to share it with others.
That’s where our new Ask the KleenMark Experts series comes in. In these short videos, our team members answer healthcare cleaning services FAQs we’ve gotten from customers and prospects over the years.
In our first series, Yuritcy Gonzalez, one of our healthcare account managers, walks viewers through common questions we get about sterilization, testing, and more.
Ready to get the answers to these healthcare cleaning services FAQs? Check out the videos below!
What kind of precautions do you take to keep our facility sterile while cleaning?
To keep healthcare facilities sterile while cleaning, KleenMark’s teams of cleaning technicians use personal protective equipment, including gloves, masks, booties, headcovers, and scrubs.
Technicians are also trained to clean from clean surfaces to dirty surfaces, top to bottom, then clockwise, to avoid contacting areas that have already been cleaned. This method is especially crucial in spaces like operating rooms, which need to remain sterile at all times.
How do healthcare regulations factor into KleenMark’s cleaning services?
Some healthcare facilities are bound to federal regulations put in place by organizations like the Joint Commission for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. These agencies also perform regular audits on the facilities they oversee to ensure they’re keeping up with cleanliness standards.
Our KleenMark teams are always prepared to meet these regulations, and clean every healthcare facility we work in as if an audit is about to be performed.
What happens during ATP testing?
ATP, or adenosine triphosphate, testing is used to make sure that the surfaces and facilities we clean are properly disinfected.
During ATP testing, a cleaning technician will take ten swabs from a room and use a testing machine to receive a “score” which indicates the amount of any bacteria, germs, or residue present on the swabbed surface.
Our teams aim to receive a score of 90% contaminant-free or higher. Lowering ATP scores are often among the key performance indicators we work on for our healthcare clients.
What does terminal cleaning mean?
Terminal cleaning involves cleaning a space with a hospital-grade disinfectant to make sure that it’s completely clean and unlikely to contain germs or illnesses that can spread between patients.
This process has more steps than a general cleaning, and is typically performed after a patient is discharged or transferred from a room.
How do you avoid cross-contamination when cleaning a medical facility?
This is one of the healthcare cleaning services FAQs we get most often. To avoid cross-contaminating surfaces while cleaning, our teams use a variety of protocols specific to the facility they’re working in.
For example, in laboratory settings, cleaning technicians will enter through one door and exit through another to avoid backtracking through areas they’ve already cleaned. In all healthcare facilities, teams will use designated supplies and tools like flat mops to avoid transferring germs from one area to another.
Still have healthcare cleaning services FAQs?
To learn more about our healthcare cleaning services, check out this blog post on FAQs we get about our hospital cleaning services, or visit our Healthcare industry page.
If your healthcare cleaning program could use an upgrade, contact us today for a quote and get ready to discover a new standard of kleen!