By Dan Hounsell

The general public has never paid more attention to the nation’s facilities, and environmental services (EVS) departments in healthcare facilities have become the highest of high-profile players in preventing the spread of the coronavirus. To demonstrate their value and have a major impact on safety in hospitals, they need to continue their efforts to make hospitals safe places to heal, visit and work.

To ensure that this is the case, EVS managers need to review their current programs and consider measures to improve operations, beginning with a program that consists of five pillars of infection prevention, according to Health Facilities Management.

For example, employees need to follow a standardized, detailed cleaning and disinfection process every time they clean a patient room. The process needs to be methodical and reproducible. One good practice is a high-profile patient room cleaning protocol that increases the frequency of disinfections and focuses on disinfecting all high-touch surfaces.