rooms nine to 10 times per shift.
"There is a heightened awareness of cleanliness and disinfection
right now," says Dean A. Caruso, MBA, executive director of support
services and sustainability at Yale New Haven. "Everyone understands
that just because something looks clean, it could still make them
sick."
Patient expectations are also going to be different when surgery
begins to ramp up, notes Ms. Nucci. "They're going to start asking
questions — 'How often are you cleaning? What are you cleaning
with? Am I safe?'" she says.
"We've had patients ask how often we clean our elevator," says
Stephen Branch, director of environmental services at Yale New Haven's
York Street facility. "That never happened before the pandemic."
Maintaining efficiencies
One thing high-volume outpatient facilities often struggle with is
how to reconcile proper surface disinfection with quick OR
turnovers. This is one area in which the COVID-19 outbreak
might work in your favor. It will require all facilities to meet a
more rigorous standard of infection prevention, particularly
among outpatient centers where turnover has been a fundamental
concern. "In the past, environmental services was sometimes
instructed to hurry cleaning along and asked how long their
process would take," says Mr. Branch. "But now with the height-
ened awareness, it's 'Let make sure you have enough time to
clean this space.'"
Another way in which Yale New Haven is marrying adequate surface
disinfection with high-volume turnover is by using the highest caliber
surface cleaning solutions. "We use a product with a one-minute dwell
time," says Mr. Branch. "It will kill most pathogens in one minute or
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