To achieve and maintain hygienic and clean quality healthcare fabrics and textiles, proper laundering and handling are crucial, according to gathered findings, recommendations and standards published by the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
Although outbreaks of infectious disease associated with laundered healthcare textiles are rare — there have only been 12 such outbreaks reported worldwide in the past four decades — hospitals must maintain optimal infection-prevention strategies during the laundering process.
"Current infection prevention strategies for laundering and handling HCT appear to be adequate in preventing healthcare-associated infections, provided that every step is taken to maintain the hygienic quality of HCTs prior to use," said Lynne Sehulster, PhD, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and lead author of the study.
Here are seven best practices to use during the HCT laundering process:
1. Adhere to standard precautions (using gown and gloves) and minimal textile agitation when handling contaminated laundry in isolation rooms to prevent the dispersal of potentially infectious aerosols.
2. Make sure offsite laundries carefully package or cover clean textile bundles prior to transport to prevent inadvertent contamination from dust and dirt during loading and unloading.
3. Store laundered HCT in a manner to keep them dry and free from soil contamination.
4. Add a disinfecting laundry chemical to the laundry cycle if any alterations occur in water temperature, agitation, chemical type or concentration that could lead to the loss of antimicrobial effectiveness of the overall process.
5. For short wash cycles of HCT or for those laundry situations in which chlorine bleach is not indicated, laundry additives — such as hydrogen peroxide, peracetic acid and acetic acid — can provide extra disinfection options.
6. Consider industrial laundering. It offers more control of the process and can be tailored to adequately disinfect HCT with more choices of detergent and laundry additives compared to home laundering.
7. Never underestimate the importance of temperature, relative humidity and moisture control in storage areas in preventing microbial proliferation in and on materials that have some organic components.
According to Dr. Sehulster, "If an outbreak occurs linked to HCT, it is not enough to conduct microbial sampling of laundered textiles and declare the laundry process to be the source of the problem. Each of the distinct operations of the laundry-handling process needs to be evaluated in order to pinpoint the root of the problem."
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