What are the Benefits of a Single Source Linen Partner in Healthcare?
When your linen and facility services needs are handled in a central location by a single provider, it’s much easier to track and streamline your facility’s needs. A single-source provider could be a smart choice to support your staff, budget, and standards for patient safety.
What is a fully-managed single-source solution? It’s a partnership between your healthcare organization and a company to facilitate optimal garment care, and facility needs such as mats, bathroom supplies, and even first aid. Your single-source partner handles everything from selecting scrubs, lab coats, and other garments to washing your linens and returning them to your facility fully hygienic and ready to use. Running low on certain supplies? A single-source provider can help with that as well. Restocking shelves of paper products, microfiber for cleaning, and even hand soap for dispensers.
Ideally, your linen partner uses tracking technology like UHF RFID chips to methodically sort personalized items, like scrubs and lab coats, while maintaining complete efficiency and cleanliness for all linens in the entire process. When certain items become too soiled or damaged to use, they can be quickly replaced to ensure your staff always has enough fresh items on hand.
Could your healthcare facility benefit from a relationship with an all-in-one partner? Below are the primary benefits of making the switch to a single-source provider.
Cost Efficiency
You’ll see the benefits of single-source management reflected in your company’s bottom line. It’s a much more efficient solution than buying or renting linens and cleaning them in-house. Inventory management of your facility services supplies, keeps you stocked to the level your facility needs without overpaying for unnecessary inventory.
Positive effects on your cost management include:
- Eliminating the need to invest in your own laundry equipment, cleaning staff, RFID tracking technology, and additional costs that occur with traditional garment care and laundry management.
- Adjustable linen inventory tailored to your needs, which prevents extra buying/renting of unnecessary linens and garments.
- Continuous inventory management processes to track, count, and replace your facility services items as needed.
- Flat rate, transparent billing that makes your monthly budget predictable.
- Fair pricing without unexpected costs from replacing laundry equipment and other extremely expensive items.
Plus, you’ll gain the cost efficiency that comes with working with a single partner rather than managing multiple relationships with multiple companies. Your administrative staff gains the peace of mind and cost-consciousness that comes from working with a central source for your facility’s needs.
Customer Service
Customer service is extremely important in an industry like healthcare, where the patient ultimately benefits from smooth customer service in every aspect of the organization. Does your current linen partner provide outstanding customer service whenever you need assistance?
Consider what happens when you have an unexpectedly busy day and are running out of clean linens and garments. ImageFIRST offers a Same Day Linen Rescue program to address this matter and urgently provide precisely what you need. This is one of the reasons ImageFIRST maintains a 97% customer retention rate.
Staff Time Savings
If you’re currently handling your linen management and purchasing facility services items in-house, calculate how much time your staff spends on these tasks. Cleaning, sanitizing, and sorting linens occupies precious time your employees need for patient care and dilutes the focus of your healthcare organization. Purchasing paper towels, toilet paper, and even First Aid supplies takes time away from important tasks as well. When was the last time your AED was inspected? Certain full-service providers will monitor your AED and replace pads and batteries as needed.
Outsourcing these needs allows your staff to fully focus on helping their patients and prevents extended hours away to sanitize linens or restock shelves. Changing to a single-source linen provider can give a measurable improvement in patient perception scores, as evidenced by numerous ImageFIRST success stories.
Customized Options
Customization is key in healthcare linen management. It allows your facility to run an efficient linen management program that is fully tailored to meet its needs, even as circumstances change over time.
Your linen partner should be more than a delivery driver. A healthcare organization deserves a strong customer focus with customization options and specialized services, such as:
- Regular assessments to determine your latest needs
- Frequent inspections to ensure your linens are clean
- Dedicated Customer Advocates to identify and resolve your challenges
- Direct access to a customer service specialist whenever you need them
Consistency in Cleaning and Infection Control
What about infection control? The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) holds high standards for collecting and sorting contaminated items at healthcare facilities. Items contaminated by pathogens and infectious agents should be kept separate from clean laundry through rigorous sorting and transportation procedures.
Washing temperatures are another key aspect of healthcare linen management. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), low-temperature washing creates a serious risk to human health and should be replaced by high-temperature washing with oxidizing compounds designed to limit the spread of microbiological contaminants.
ImageFIRST follows industry-leading infection prevention quality assurance procedures. We provide consistency in cleaning and dead-on-contact washing with Triple BioShield Protection and bacteria-inhibiting softeners. We also use plastic bags to prevent cross-contamination and welcome third-party inspectors into our facilities.
ImageFIRST: Your Single Source Linen Partner
To learn more about using ImageFIRST as your single source for linens, scrubs, and facility services, please request a quote. We’re your partner in healthcare linen management and would be delighted to show you the benefits of switching to our services.