An unclean medical office can spell disaster for your practice! There are several ways in which an unclean medical office can spell disaster for your practice. Not using the services of a trustworthy professional cleaning company puts your practice at risk.
Let’s look at a few of these potential issues.
A Doctor’s Reputation
How do janitorial services help a doctor’s reputation? As if doctors didn’t have enough to worry about, they now need to monitor their reputations as well. Because of the sensitive nature of what a doctor does, taking care of the health or even the life of a person, his or her reputation is very important. While it may not seem like it, something as small as the cleanliness of the medical offices can affect a doctor’s reputation and livelihood, and that is where medical cleaning services come in.
Online Reputation Monitoring
Patients often go online to check out a doctor before making an appointment, or they may ask for a referral from a trusted friend. They are not looking to find out about the janitorial services, but everything about the doctor’s practice is fair game for people to comment on, from his or her bedside manner, apparent knowledge of the issues, the time taken to explain the diagnosis, treatment, and outcome, and ongoing care. But, other issues beyond the doctor are also considered. Patients have stopped seeing doctors because of the behavior of the reception staff or nurses. Patients would be reluctant to return to a doctor’s office, and would not recommend him or her if the physical environment was, in any way, dirty or unkempt.
Many of these are entirely up to the doctor to resolve, but keeping a clean medical office is the task of the professional janitorial company.
Patient Recovery is Tricky
Beyond just the reputation of the doctor, a patient’s recovery is a tricky process and relies on many elements. One is how comfortable and safe a patient feels in his or her doctor’s rooms. A medical office that is clean, comfortable, airy, light, and clean-smelling, gives a patient a great deal more assurance of his or her recovery than does a room that is unclean, has old, torn magazines, chipped furniture, and visible dust. If a room can appear that unclean, the patient thinks, what other invisible dangers are lurking there?
Medical office cleaning staff make sure these issues never come up. While at the doctor’s office, patients should think about their recovery, doctors should think about their treatment of his or her patient, and the medical cleaning services company should think how to keep everything clean, sterile, and healthy.
It’s Not Just the Medicine and Treatment
It’s not just the actual medicine and treatment that helps a patient to heal. His or her mindset is also very important. When a patient has setbacks in his or her recovery, it’s important he or she can recognize where those setbacks come from. It could be the treatment is not correct and either dosages or combinations need to change, or a new regime needs to be prescribed. It could also be the patient has not been taking his or her medication correctly. Of course, it could also be the illness is more aggressive than first thought and he or she won’t get better easily.
The patient needs to take this into account and not blame the doctor for his or her failure to recover. But, if a patient sees an unclean office, it’s too easy to shift the blame to the doctor. Something that is clearly beyond the doctor’s responsibility becomes his or her fault if the professional janitorial company has not done its job in keeping the office clean.
Of course, the doctor also must be responsible for how he or she looks. Doctors who appear sloppy or under-dressed do not convey confidence to their patients and that undermines their trust in both the doctor and the treatment plan.
A professional janitorial company can ensure the doctor’s office or treatment room are well-stocked with an antiseptic soap dispenser, a good supply of drying paper towels, and an empty garbage can. Medical office cleaning staff cannot be responsible for making the doctor wash his hands, but they can provide for every step to that point.
Malpractice and Ethics
Malpractice cases are issues that doctors never want to deal with. However, the chance of a doctor being charged with an ethics issue or a malpractice suit is increased when the patient has lost faith in the doctor. Keeping the relationship between the doctor and the patient trustworthy is very important when working long term to deal with a difficult illness. Medical cleaning services can guarantee at least one area of concern is eliminated by keeping the areas the patient must be in clean and sterilized.
Areas to Keep Clean
There are many areas for janitorial services to keep clean in a doctor’s office, including the reception and waiting room, examination rooms, doctor’s consulting room, and bathrooms.
Everything the patient and his or her family encounters should be cleaned, and everything that staff members use should also be cleaned regularly.
Prevent Cross Contamination
Cross contamination is a big problem in the medical field and one the medical office cleaning staff can help prevent. It is hugely irresponsible for a doctor to allow germs, viruses or bacteria to move from one patient to another, and it’s a situation that medical facilities are working hard at reducing. Janitorial services can ensure this risk is reduced by cleaning and sterilizing areas where patients are treated, removing any byproducts of medical treatment and cleaning up any waste materials quickly.
Proper Equipment for Specialized Needs
Medical cleaning services need to be well-trained, know how to dispose of medical waste, and how to clean specialized medical equipment. Certain detergents that might be suitable in a commercial cleaning situation will not be appropriate for a medical office when they come into contact with patients.
Cost of Bad Medical Hygiene
The cost of bad medical hygiene is not just poor health for the patient and affects his or her recovery. It could also mean contamination from other patients or medical staff becoming ill. And, in this situation, it could also mean damage to the doctor’s professional reputation and his or her inability to continue working with patients.
Closing Thoughts
Medical cleaning services are essential to the success of a medical practice and the protection of a doctor’s reputation. iNX has the experience and training to ensure the clean, safe, and hygienic cleaning of your health-care facility. Give iNX a call to hear what we can do for you an
