Baptist Health is spending more than $1 million in garments for staff and patients that are designed to repel fluids and minimize transmission of hospital-borne infections, according to an article on the Florida Times-Union website.

“Of course the number one way to prevent the spread of infection in our hospital environments is effective hand hygiene,” said Mobeen Rathore, chief of infectious diseases for Wolfson Children’s Hospital and director of the University of Florida Center for HIV/AIDS Research, Education and Service, Jacksonville. 

“However the addition of this uniform technology makes sense. It is one more way we can enhance the environment of safety relative to infection prevention,” she said in the article.

The new Baptist Health garments feature a textile technology that has a durable fluid barrier and an embedded antimicrobial technology. 

In order to make the transition to the new garments as soon as possible, Baptist Health is buying about 30,000 garments for more than 6,000 employees as well as another 40,000 for patients, said John Wilbanks, Baptist Health’s chief operating officer.

Read the article.