Detroit Michigan Janitorial & Cleaning Services Blog

HIPPA, OSHA, Blood-Borne Pathogens: Is Your Medical Cleaning Service Compliant?

Written by Bob Abraham | Mon, Feb 09, 2015 @ 07:00 PM

HIPPA, OSHA, and Blood-Borne Pathogens are critical issues in healthcare cleaning. Companies that vie for your business must understand the unique safety requirements of medical cleaning. Facility Managers for health care centers, medical groups, or clinical offices understand that medical cleaning necessitates much, much more than typical office cleaning. If your current cleaning company has not made your business their business, they might leave your facility at risk with health, safety, compliance and legal issues.

Why Finding the Right Medical Cleaning Company Is So Difficult
Finding the right health care cleaning company shouldn’t be so challenging. And yet, with so many different levels of cleaning companies out there, finding a commercial cleaning company capable of handling your medical cleaning isn’t as straightforward as you might hope. Many janitorial companies will tell you they understand the unique requirements of health care cleaning but how, as a Facilities Manager, do you separate the fakers from those medical cleaning companies that offer solid experience, a real understanding of HIPPA, OSHA and Blood-Borne Pathogens and a reputation built on service and trust?

How You Can Identify the Best Healthcare Cleaning Companies
A first critical component of hiring the right medical cleaning company is to be wary of believing everything you are told by prospective janitorial companies. It can be enticing and easy to get drawn in when you have a large facility in need of care, but any health care cleaning company deserving of your business should be able to backup their claims of great medical cleaning services with observable systems and processes, solid references and documented training.

Great Medical Cleaning Starts With Great People
What makes for great people when it comes to healthcare cleaning? First, any individuals entering your medical facilities must be safe. That means that the prospective medical cleaning company must conduct thorough screening of all employees including but not limited to criminal background checks and drug testing. Then, on top of screening, your janitorial company should work hard to find the right fit for your medical center or health care group. Often these cleaners become an extension of your own teams and a good fit makes everything run smoother. On top of this, all cleaning employees need to be properly trained in the specifics of both medical cleaning and your individual facility.

Why Systems Are Critical To Success In Caring For Your Facility
Systems are a lot like a map and in the absence of them, even very good medical cleaning companies are certain to lose their way. Cleaning teams aren’t machines, they are people and people depend upon systems and procedures to keep track of what is required of them. All of us rely on systems to help us manage our workloads and responsibilities. A professional hospital and clinic cleaning service understands that even the best employees need systems to help insure the best, most responsive and consistent service. Professional cleaning companies don’t just leave it to chance. While commercial cleaning companies are likely to have systems that look different from each other, any solid system should include checklists of tasks outlining who does what and when. Likewise, there must be a clear means of communicating and problems or shifting requirements. You should also know precisely who to call if there is a problem or emergency. The last thing you want when dealing with an issue is an endless round of phone or email tag. Though many of these necessary systems may be outside of the normal view of a client, you can still ask about them. In fact, just inquiring about issues like training, screening and such puts any new cleaning company on alert that you will hold them to their agreements.

Does Your Cleaning Company Grasp the Importance of HIPPA, OSHA, Blood-Borne Pathogens
If you ask a potential Michigan cleaning company about HIPPA and blood-borne pathogens do they give you a vacant look or meaningless platitudes? That is a significant warning sign that they likely are not the right company for the job. If your health care cleaning company isn’t familiar with health care compliance issues, how can they d their part to guarantee your compliance? Admittedly, your healthcare cleaning company need not score earn an M.D. to clean your facility, however, they must understand how pertinent healthcare legislation affect your business and theirs. Any commercial cleaning company that wishes to tackle the maintenance of medical facilities must understand the requirements of HIPPA. They should also be able to provide you with documented training in blood borne pathogens. If you have any doubt that a potential commercial janitorial company is prepared to tack le you facility’s maintenance, it is worth shopping around until you find a company you feel confident about. 

Why Professional Certification Can Smooth the Road to Exceptional Service

Much like medical professionals have board certifications to designate enhanced training and mastery of medical specialties, maintenance companies have industry certification to call attention to companies going above and beyond what is required. Within the janitorial, maintenance and cleaning industry, there is CIMS certification. CIMS certification offers a beneficial resource for any Facility Manager looking for a healthcare cleaning company ready for the critical job of keeping your facilities in top notch condition. CIMS certification is an incredibly demanding process that compels medical cleaning companies to demonstrate best practices and competencies in several critical areas that affect you as a client. CIMS certification demonstrates that you are working with a committed professional maintenance company committed to excellence.

Insuring A Clean Bill Of Health For Your Facility
You don’t just run an office, you run a medical facility and as such, the stakes are much higher. You need to partner with a commercial cleaning company that understands your reputation, patient and staff health, compliance issues and more are on the line if the job is not done properly. While it can be a time consuming process to find the best Michigan medical cleaning company, it is well worth the effort in the long run.