CRMC Teams Up to Help Prevent Transmission of Infections in the OR

With a focus on providing the safest operating room (OR) environments – for patients and healthcare workers – a multidisciplinary team at Clark Regional Medical Center (CRMC) in Kentucky recently brought in its healthcare launderer and an infection prevention innovator to enhance best-practice processing techniques, tools and training to help prevent the transmission of preventable healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), which are a concern nationwide.

“Hospital operating rooms are among the most infection-sensitive environments in healthcare and preventing infections is a responsibility shared by many – including the administrative team, our infection preventionists and environmental services (ES),” says Cheri Sibley, CRMC's CEO. “As a multimodal initiative, we – the administration, the ES team and its vendors – put our heads together and determined that a comprehensive process that includes cleaning, disinfecting and laundering can make a tremendously positive difference in providing safer surgical suites – and we maximized this opportunity to the fullest.”

To accomplish this, the hospital aligned the efforts of three entities: its specialized healthcare laundry – Logan’s Healthcare Linen and Uniform Rental of Shelbyville, Ky.; a Chicago-based innovator of infection prevention products, service and training – UMF Corporation; and CRMC’s ES staff responsible for OR processing.

“Logan’s is an HLAC-accredited laundry,” Sibley says, referring to the Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council. “Accreditation means Logan’s processes our linens and textiles based on the highest professionally recognized (AORN Seal of Recognition™) standards for patient safety and infection prevention.”

UMF Corporation is the developer of the nationally recognized PerfectCLEAN® Operating Room Processing & Checklist System. “Like HLAC’s standards, this program has been awarded the AORN Seal of Recognition,” Sibley says, referring to the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses, a national nonprofit organization representing more than 160,000 OR nurses. “AORN recognition means the program has undergone thorough review by AORN and meets the guidelines of the AORN Perioperative Standards and Recommended Practices. It confirms the program has met AORN standards of excellence in safe patient care in the OR.”

The beneficiary of the PerfectCLEAN OR program is CRMC’s ES staff responsible for OR processing. “Through intensive training provided by UMF Corporation, team members learn best practices for how these rooms are processed to ensure the OR readiness for emergency surgery, or prior to any kind of surgery, between all surgeries, and at the end of every day,” Sibley says.

As part of the training, the ES team also learns how to use PerfectCLEAN-branded, high performance micro-denier products. These products are provided by – and processed by – Logan’s, the healthcare launderer.

“It’s a processing trifecta,” Sibley says. “And the biggest beneficiaries are our patients and healthcare workers, who have the peace of mind that CRMC is doing everything possible to prevent the transmission of infections in the OR.” She adds that CRMC is the first hospital in the state to provide this specific training to its OR ES staff. Participants receive “Hygiene Specialist OR Training” certificates acknowledging their participation in the program. The accomplishments of the ES OR staff were acknowledged in a recent hospital ceremony.
 
Source: UMF Corporation