Medical Office Cleaning Essentials

At the same time, consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about their safety in indoor environments. This concern only rises in medical offices and ambulatory locations where patients receive care. Effective medical office cleaning requires standardized practices designed specifically for healthcare settings.

How Do You Clean Medical Offices?

Specific practices implemented at a given medical office will depend on the patient acuity level the office serves. Overall, medical office cleaning should mirror acute care cleaning in following standardized, repeatable procedures. For example, Crothall and Compass One Healthcare rely on five best practices to clean hospitals and limit infection:

1. Focus on hand hygiene to limit the spread of infection-causing pathogens.
2. Develop processes that consider the specific people, processes, and products used while fostering teamwork among clinical and support staff.
3. Use objective measurements to assess cleanliness.
4. Augment basic cleaning and disinfecting procedures with electrostatic applications, air purification systems, and surface-barrier residual applications in high-risk situations.
5. Embrace emerging solutions to mitigate pathogen transmission when applicable.

Procedures for cleaning medical offices should also include these five pillars of cleaning to limit infection. Similar to hospitals, healthcare-associated infections (HAI) can also be contracted in office settings which impacts patient safety and their overall experience. CDC data finds that at least one in 31 hospital patients develop an HAI each day. As medical offices start to encounter more patients traditionally served in a hospital setting, these offices will have to tackle higher levels of risk and implement proper procedures to keep patients safe.

Standardizing Your Medical Office Cleaning Providers

Medical office buildings frequently outsource environmental services, but standardizing outsourced partners is less common. However, having too many vendors and protocols can waste a lot of money ⁠— and variability can undermine quality and negatively impact patient satisfaction.

At the same time, patients are increasingly looking to medical offices and ambulatory sites to serve their needs. Therefore, these settings often create the first impression patients have with healthcare systems. Broader networks must ensure their medical offices foster a safe experience that promotes a positive impression while aligning with health systems’ procedures.

When healthcare networks standardize services through a single partner, they can enjoy lower overall costs coupled with increased patient satisfaction. A single partner also makes administrative tasks more manageable as long as they establish a solid governance model. Look for a partner with healthcare experiences that aligns culturally and operationally with your organization.

Medical offices can look to best practices hospitals employ to develop effective and efficient cleaning procedures. Standardized and repeatable processes that managers validate create both the perception and reality of clean in the medical office setting. By partnering with experts such as Crothall, seamlessness across staff ensures the continuous implementation of cleaning best practices within healthcare facilities.