Health care textiles, ranging from scrubs and gowns to sheets, are an essential aspect of patient safety. While much emphasis is placed on surgical teams and infection preventionists (IPs), healthcare linen and laundry programs often operate behind the scenes, ensuring clean and hygienic uniforms and textiles. However, the connection between laundry practices and infection prevention tends to be understudied or undervalued. To bridge this knowledge gap, the Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) organized a 3-part webinar series focusing on health care, laundry, and infection prevention.
Drawing record numbers of IPs, clinicians, hospital administrators, and laundry professionals, the series shed light on evidence-based practices and industry standards that impact patient and staff safety. TRSA’s CEO, Joseph Ricci, emphasized the vital role of hygienically clean linens and textiles in health care, protecting frontline workers and patients from infection risks, and contributing to a secure healthcare environment.
The series comprised three parts: ‘Mastering Laundry Inspections: A Best Practices Checklist for Infection Preventionists’, ‘The Risks of Home Laundering Facility-Provided Scrubs’, and ‘Linen Handling Best Practices: Protecting against Infection in Healthcare Facilities’. Each webinar unpacked a different aspect of healthcare laundry, from the importance of hygienically clean certification standards, the risks associated with home laundering of scrubs, to best practices for handling linens in health care facilities.
For IPs, these webinars offered valuable insights into the role and significance of health care laundry in infection prevention. The information can provide a basis to collaborate more effectively with sterile processing, environmental services, and supply chain teams to reinforce infection prevention efforts. The webinar series is now freely accessible on TRSA’s website, indicating the organization’s commitment to fostering transparency and bolstering infection control.
In conclusion, health care textiles play a frontline role in infection prevention, safety, and sustainability. Partnering with certified health care laundry providers and embracing evidence-based practices is not a luxury but an essential requirement. Proper knowledge, oversight, and collaboration around health care laundry can significantly aid facilities in diminishing infection risks, safeguarding staff and patients, and upholding supreme standards of safety and quality.