UMF Corporation Calls for Nominations for National Hygiene Specialist Excellence Award

UMF Corporation, a developer of infection prevention products, protocols and training programs, is seeking nominations for its sixth annual Hygiene Specialist® Excellence award, which was established by the company in 2010 to acknowledge the important  contribution of environmental services (ES) departments in hospitals and long-term care facilities across the country. Nominations should be submitted on or before Dec. 31, 2015.

EVS managers are encouraged to nominate a dedicated staff member to receive the award. Nomination forms are available at www.perfectclean.com. The award is facilitated in collaboration with the International Executive Housekeepers Association (IEHA), a professional education and certification

organization for facility management professionals, which will hold its 49th Annual Conference & Convention Oct. 18-23 in Las Vegas.

"The efforts of so many hard-working ES professionals in the healthcare profession go unnoticed," says Michael Patterson, president of IEHA, in an article in the current issue of the organization's magazine Executive Housekeeping Today (EHT)). "We're thrilled to participate in such a great program that provides some much deserved recognition to these individuals."

In the EHT article, UMF Corporation CEO George Clarke says, "Hygiene Specialists are MVPs to patients and coworkers. They have been called 'the secret weapon' in reducing and preventing preventable healthcare-associated infections (pHAIs) and providing a safe environment in all types of medical facilities. Clearly, these dedicated individuals are invaluable and deserve recognition."

In June, Laurie Darling, a member of the Environmental Service (ES) team at Heartland Health Care Center - Oakland located in Troy, Mich., was named the 2014 recipient of the Hygiene Specialist® Excellence award.

Jeannie Miles, EVS director at Heartland Health Care Center - Oakland, nominated Darling for the award. A committee of industry leaders selected Darling after a  review of nominees. As a member of the facility's ES team, Darling participated in UMF Corporation's PerfectCLEAN® Hygiene Specialist In-Service Training  program. The program includes learning best practices for effective infection prevention, in-service education and effective hygiene management in patient  rooms and all other areas of a healthcare facility.

In the EHT article, Clarke says, "We've begun to see the focus in the battle against pHAIs steer away from single initiatives, like hand hygiene, to the concept of

facility-wide multimodal intervention, which includes effective and comprehensive environmental hygiene.Within these settings the ES staff member, from a C-suite and clinical perspective, is increasingly being recognized as that first line of defense in combating HAIs," Clarke says. "This is an important objective of our award program -- to change the perception and importance of ES at a critical juncture in the battle

against HAIs. When someone receives this award, management takes notice," he says.

A link to the forms is also available on the home page of IEHA's website, www.ieha.org.

Source: UMF Corporation