EVS directors are under pressure to maintain or enhance the cleanliness of their facilities to improve the patient experience, often while their budgets are reduced. The key to meeting these challenges is using innovative products that reduce costs and enhance productivity. For example, a new generation of floor scrubbers provides excellent cleaning results using electrically converted water and no chemicals.
Chemical-free floor cleaning offers tremendous cost savings, and by reducing chemical purchases, these scrubbers often can pay for themselves within several years. Other savings include reducing the need to order, transport and store chemicals in multiple locations throughout a healthcare facility, and reduced sewage and packaging waste disposal expense.
New employee training also is simplified and productivity is improved when chemicals no longer need to be mixed prior to cleaning. This means less time spent preparing to clean, and more floor space cleaned in the same amount of time.
“Buying bigger, better ride on scrubbers versus walk behinds allows us to get twice as much work done with one person compared to two people with walk behinds,” said Gregg Daniels, Director of Facility Services, Mercy Medical Center, Des Moines, Iowa. “Chemical free cleaning also keeps the equipment a lot cleaner.”
In addition, a maintenance program for scrubbers can protect your investment and increase up time and overall life of the machines. Look for a nationwide service plan with factory-trained service representatives who know your machines inside and out.
“Every day healthcare administrators are forced to be creative in reducing costs while providing patients a higher quality outcome,” said Dan Beaver, Director of Environmental
Services, Broward Health Medical Center, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “Using chemical-free floor cleaning there’s less set up/preparation time and less chance of improper chemical dilution. It has also saved us more than $12,000 in chemical costs.”
New, quieter scrubber technology minimizes disruptions to patients and visitors, and enables more daytime cleaning. This further reduces labor costs and reinforces facility cleanliness as cleaning staff is more visible while being less intrusive.
*The findings are the result of life cycle analysis conducted by the environmental sustainability group EcoForm. See www.tennantco.com for more information.
