Hospital Cleaning: Does White Make Right?

When it comes to floor care, hospitals — along with other medical facilities — hold themselves to higher standards than the majority of jan/san customers. Some might find that statement to be a bit controversial, but it should be no surprise to most industry professionals, says Harry Kendrick, director of housekeeping for the two-million-square-foot Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H.

“When people enter a hospital, they expect it to be completely clean,” he says. “They expect the floors to be immaculate. That’s just the basics of cleaning in a hospital. If the floor is clean, they probably won’t even notice — but if it’s not 100 percent clean, you’ll hear about it right away.”

The reason for stringent floor care standards in hospitals is fairly obvious: the purpose of the facility is the treatment and curing of illness or injury. Patients (as well as hospital staff) associate cleanliness with a healthy environment.

“If the floor looks dirty, then people will assume the entire facility is dirty, and they’ll probably think that it’s not a place that gives adequate care,” says Kendrick.

The vast amount of floor-care cleaning that takes place in a hospital is to ensure complete sanitation — powerful quaternary cleaning chemicals are used to destroy viruses and bacteria, for example. In addition to the “actual cleaning,” however, cleaning directors traditionally have also been concerned with the perception that their hospital floors give to patrons. Most notably: the floors had better be gleaming white.

The Look of Sterility
In the past, hospital managers made concerted efforts to present shiny white floors in their buildings, regardless of how clean they actually were, says Gary Kroening, environmental services manager for Columbia Hospital, Milwaukee.

“I think it gives more of a sterile appearance,” he says of white floors. “It makes people feel like the floors are clean.”

Just as toothpaste manufacturers have successfully marketed their popular whitening toothpaste brands to large numbers of consumers, hospital managers have traditionally made efforts to send a “clean and white” message about their floors, adds Kroening.

“I think the subconscious message that a white floor gives is, ‘there aren’t any bacteria or viruses here to worry about,’” he says.

When selling to purchasing agents for hospitals and medical facilities, some sanitary supply distributors still push powerful floor chemicals that are designed to whiten even the dirtiest floors.

Is the white trend over for medical facilities? Not quite. Some hospitals are still looking for the clean and white look, says Kendrick. However, the current trend for many hospitals is toward a more “homey,” comfortable atmosphere. Cleaning managers are now working to break the mold of traditional healthcare facility cleaners as they turn their focus to making patients feel like they’re at home.

The Color of Comfort
“I think if you look at most hospitals in the Northeast, we’re getting away from the clean and white tradition,” says Anthony Como, environmental services director for Greenwich Hospital, Yale University’s medical center, in Greenwich, Conn.

“A lot of medical facilities want to get away from that stereotypical hospital look,” he adds. “People are already scared stiff to walk into a hospital, so the trend is to try and make the atmosphere more welcoming — almost like a hotel.”

Instead of making sure that every corridor and patient-room floor is a beacon of white cleanliness, Como has worked with facility designers to increase the use of warm colors, along with putting down hundreds of feet of carpet.

“When someone walks into our hospital buildings and looks at the floors, they think of it as a luxury hotel before they think about it as a sterile hospital,” says Como.

A similar strategy is taking shape for Kroening’s cleaning staff at Milwaukee’s Columbia Hospital. “I think that more and more hospital designers are trying to balance the sterile, clean floors with more welcoming colors,” he says.

Kendrick’s cleaning staff at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center is learning to be flexible, too. The main hospital was built in 1991, but several new additions are currently underway.

“Our campus of buildings is gradually moving toward a 50-50 ratio of hard floor to carpet,” he says. “The biggest problem is keeping up with our cleaning operations for every kind of surface, even when we have to adjust to construction or varied influxes of patients.”

Cleaning Past Perception
Regardless of whether a hospital holds to the traditional cleaning regimen that demands the whitest of white floors, or a newer, hotel-inspired facility, the main objective for any cleaning staff is to prevent the spread of virus or disease via those floors.

“One thing that we can’t really get away from is using powerful floor chemicals that still have that ‘hospital smell,’” says Como. “We’re actively looking for less-toxic, more environmentally friendly quaternary compounds, but manufacturers just haven’t been able to develop them yet.”

Blood-borne pathogens and other viruses that can be transferred by bodily fluids are a constant occurrence in hospitals. Therefore, distributors need to team with their customers to put the best cleaning plan into action.

“We look for suppliers who know how to provide cleaning chemicals and systems that deal with different amounts of spilled blood, for example,” says Kroening. “We have specific procedures for dealing with blood. If a few drops are spilled, we use an alcohol wipe with gloves. If there’s a pool of blood, then we wear an entire protective uniform with foot-coverings and we get out the heavy-duty cleaners.”