Community Memorial Health Systems (CMHS), a community-owned, nonprofit, state-of-the-art regional hospital and health center serving the needs of the greater Ventura, Calif. area has had their on-premise laundry (OPL) achieve the Hygienically Clean Healthcare certification. This is the first OPL to meet the standards of Hygienically Clean since the program’s inception in 2011.

The laundry provides hygienically clean linens, gowns, scrubs and other healthcare garments for employees and patients of the 242-bed facility. “We’re excited to be amongst the elite facilities to provide Hygienically Clean textiles to our hospital’s patients in Ventura County,” said Gustavo Guzman, Laundry Manager, CMHS. “We are proud to be in compliance with the Hygienically Clean Standard, which has the industry’s best management practices for producing safe linens. Our employees also feel safer and are reassured by the processes we follow and the results-oriented testing of our products.”

Hygienically Clean is the quantified, validated standard and measure for hygienically clean textiles in North America, and achieving this certification reflects an organization’s commitment to best management practices (BMPs) in laundering as verified by on-site inspection and their ability to produce hygienically clean textiles as quantified by ongoing microbial testing based on established hygienically clean healthcare textile methods and standards.

The Hygienically Clean Healthcare certification confirms the organization’s continuing dedication to infection prevention, compliance with recognized industry standards and processing healthcare textiles using BMPs as described in its quality assurance documentation, a focal point for Hygienically Clean inspectors’ evaluation. The independent, third-party inspection must also confirm essential evidence that:

• Employees are properly trained and protected
• Managers understand regulatory requirements
• OSHA-compliant
• Physical plant operates effectively

To achieve certification initially, laundries pass three rounds of outcome-based microbial testing, indicating that their processes are producing Hygienically Clean Healthcare textiles and diminished presence of yeast, mold and harmful bacteria. They also must pass a facility inspection. To maintain their certification, they must pass quarterly RODAC and semi-annual USP 62 testing (RODAC results less than or equal to 20 cfu per square diameter and USP 62 results must show an absence of specified microorganisms) to ensure that as laundry conditions change, such as water quality, textile fabric composition and wash chemistry, laundered product quality is consistently maintained. Re-inspection occurs every two to three years.

This process eliminates subjectivity by focusing on outcomes and results that verify textiles cleaned in these facilities meet appropriate hygienically clean standards and BMPs for hospitals, surgery centers, medical offices, nursing homes and other medical facilities.

Hygienically Clean Healthcare certification acknowledges laundries’ effectiveness in protecting healthcare operations by verifying quality control procedures in linen, uniform and facility services operations related to the handling of textiles containing blood and other potentially infectious materials.

Certified laundries use processes, chemicals and BMPs acknowledged by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, American National Standards Institute and others. Introduced by TRSA in 2012, Hygienically Clean Healthcare brought to North America the international cleanliness standards for Hygienically Clean healthcare linens and garments used worldwide by the Certification Association for Professional Textile Services and the European Committee for Standardization

Objective experts in epidemiology, infection control, nursing and other healthcare professions work with Hygienically Clean launderers to ensure the certification continues to enforce the highest standards for producing clean healthcare textiles.

Hygienically Clean reflects the evolution of healthcare laundry certification in light of growing global concerns about infection control, documenting practices that ensure elimination of potentially harmful microbial content while adding quantifiable verification of continuous improvement in overall cleanliness.