HEALTHCARE & HOSPITAL HYGIENE
Streamlining The Process
In the hospital environment, ensuring that cleanliness is of a high standard is absolutely paramount. With the threat of infection and cross contamination lingering in every ward, operating theatre and laboratory, it is vital that cleaning staff know exactly what needs to be cleaned, how and where.
AsepTech offer contamination control solutions for hospitals up and down the country, and with their portable tracking technology, they can help instruct cleaning staff on the right way to tackle these sensitive environments. Whilst at the Cleaning Show in March, we caught up with Mark Cosh, Managing Director of AsepTech, who told us all about the company, its technology, and how it all works.
T
omorrow’s Cleaning (TC): So, how did AsepTech get started?
M
ark Cosh (MC): Many years ago we started working with the NHS
and the cancer screening vehicles, and they had a necessity to try to coordinate all their cleaning services across the country. And the problem that they had was that each area had used a different supplier and nothing was joined up. Now coming from a technology background, I simply took some technology and we created a solution that connected everything, which meant that if there was an issue or there was a problem anywhere, it was communicated quickly, and people could respond.
44 TC
And how did you end up working in hospitals?
MC
By accident! On the back of what we were doing,
we were invited along to one of the hospitals we now work with, and the hospitals were having some issues with their cleaning practices. In particular in the quality and inspection processes, so they were – as all hospitals do – constantly looking for ways of improving their process. But when I asked them what their procedures for cleaning were, it just blew me away. Their standard operation procedures ran into huge piles from how to wash your hands to how to put on a garment, what biocides and technology you should use. They were using their lab staff as cleaners, and losing two hours of production a day as a result of that. We asked why they didn’t use cleaners, and they said they’d had problems with the cleaners in the past, with things being missed and had concerns about controlling the process. So we said ‘what would it take to fix that?’ And we came up with the idea of taking all those processes and automating them, and so we put it in a step by step guide that allows the cleaning staff to turn up at a location, they clock in via their device, we know they’re on site through the GPS, and their work schedule comes to them, so they don’t need to worry that today they need to use biocide A
The need for hospitals to remain clean and hygienic at all times is essential, but cleaning them can be more complex than other, less sensitive environments. We had a chat with Mark Cosh, Managing Director of AsepTech, who explained how their technology can help to simplify the process.
or chemical B – and they simply follow the process on there.
TC work? MC
We kit out our cleaners with these devices, and they offer
detailed instructions of what they need to do. For instance, when the cleaning operative begins, it will instruct them to go to the stock room and collect whatever chemicals they need for the task at hand, and they’ll use a barcode scanner, so that we have a record of what is being used. And as they work through, it then goes through each step that they need to carry out to complete the task. Then we can identify efficiencies in the process, and if there are any issues, they can be flagged and resolved.
Operatives have the ability as well to capture photographs whilst they’re working, attach it to a document and put it straight in. So that way everything can be used as evidence to ensure that the cleaning staff are doing the job properly. That’s what we’re about – data and traceability – and it’s done in such a way that’s so quick and easy, that it covers all the processes.
The other thing that we use is ATP devices to scan the surfaces, which is purely just to check the bioburden level, and it’s our way of checking if it’s clean and whether the cleaner has done their job. And we can randomly
www.tomorrowscleaning.com
It certainly sounds easy enough, but how does it
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78