Medical office cleaning is a critical component of managing your medical facilities. Healthcare cleaning services that are less than optimal can negatively affect patient and practitioner satisfaction and hit you where it hurts, your bottom line. You might think your medical office cleaning services are fine but what do your patients think? Have you considered what they see when they visit your facilities and health care professionals?
As a facility manager, we often tend to overestimate the effectiveness of our office cleaning services. Maybe our office cleaners started strong but have begun to phone it in. Perhaps there are management issues with the janitorial company we have contracted with that are spilling over into our facility management. Maybe as a Facility Manager, we have become so bogged down in other issues that we did not want to invest the time into finding new Medical cleaning services Michigan. Perhaps we get so used to the spaces that we just stop seeing things. Last week I visited my orthopedist’s office for a consult on a very sore shoulder. My experience can offer some insight into how your medical offices are seen from your patient’s perspective. Here’s what I saw.
First, when I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed some trash accumulating around the bushes planted in the center divider, from the looks of it, the trash had been there awhile. As I entered the building I noticed that the glass doors were fairly smudged by people’s hands coming and going. Now it was later in the day so understandably, heavily trafficked areas do get dirty, but my thoughts in a medical building go right to the amount of sick and contagious people who have probably touched these surfaces. A walk through the common halls to get to my doctor’s suite was okay, carpets looked pretty clean and the overall condition of the walls, pictures and lights looked good. I stopped at the shared restrooms before seeing the doctor. In any healthcare setting, I definitely expect clean restrooms but these did not measure up. There was water standing all over the sink, the mirrors were smudgy and a fair amount of trash had accumulated around an overfilled trash bin. The stalls were okay but overall but it looked like this space needed a good restroom cleaning. Once in the physician’s suite I noticed things were a bit dusty and there were some coffee rings on the reception table but overall things looked okay. I was checked in and led to the examination room. My doctor was pretty backed up, not unusual for afternoon appointments but it gave me about twenty minutes to sit, wait and look around. I noticed a weird brown smear on a cabinet along with a multitude of fingerprints and grime, dirty vinyl baseboards were an unappealing mix of splashes, scuffs and dust, the sink had a lot of mineral deposits around the fixture and the areas around the entry door handle was really dirty.
So here’s the thing, my experience is far from unique. Many patients are finding the custodial services in your healthcare facility underwhelming at best, negligent at worst. Commercial cleaning that doesn’t measure up leaves patients concerned about the overall quality of the care they are receiving at your facility from your practitioners. With so many healthcare facilities popping up, patients and practitioner tenants have a great deal of choices. Over time, your occupancy and overall image will suffer.
You contracted with medical office cleaning services to save time and money and get value for your cleaning budget, so what happened? It could be that your office janitorial service is not putting Smart Clean practices into effect. Smart Cleaning is the best way to get more for less out of your Detroit janitorial budget. Smart Cleaning comes down to understanding what your essential medical office cleaning services are and what are the non-essential but important services and areas you can intermittently do without. With smart cleaning, you can work with a Detroit Janitorial service to make a modest budget still get what you need to keep your facilities maintenance running smoothly.
Maybe your professional janitorial service isn’t so professional after all. Perhaps your medical office cleaning company doesn’t actually have the experience they need to deliver quality cleaning for healthcare facilities. One of the issues that come up with healthcare facilities looking for medical cleaning services in Michigan is finding a contractor that understands their unique needs. From compliance issues like HIPPA, blood borne pathogens, HCAHPS scores and more medical cleaning requires a great deal more industry knowledge and training form your professional janitorial service. If you are a Facility Manager for a medical group, ambulatory center, surgical center, health care center or clinic offices, you know that medical cleaning requires a great deal more than general office cleaning.
When looking for healthcare cleaning services that deliver, do your homework. Sure a janitorial company can tell you they are great but the best medical cleaning companies can easily backup their claims with visible systems and processes, verifiable references, documented training and more. When you mention HIPPA and blood-borne pathogens do you get an empty stare from your medical cleaning company? That is a pretty big sign they are not making your business their business. How will your medical cleaning company know how to insure your compliance with health care regulation if they are not themselves familiar with it?
Much like practitioners have board certification to indicate additional training and acumen in certain areas of medicine, healthcare cleaning services have much the same. Within the janitorial, maintenance and cleaning industry, there is CIMS certification. CIMS certification can be a valuable tool for any Facility Manager looking for quality medical cleaning services in Michigan. CIMS certification is an extremely challenging process that requires medical office cleaning companies to demonstrate proficiencies in a variety of areas that directly impact your facility. CIMS certification is a great indicator that you are dealing with a committed professional commercial cleaning dedicated to building a long-term relationship with you.
Leave a Reply