Cleaning equipment have been revolutionizing the contract cleaning industries, by making it much easier to get restrooms to a higher level of clean than traditional methods of cleaning.
The equipment uses water pressure to clean restroom floors and surfaces, allowing the operator to get into a room’s nooks and crannies. Once finished, the machine retracts the dirty water with a vacuum.
Cleaning with chemicals can create negative thoughts with your clients that you are just hiding the dirt not cleaning it. Cleaning equipment allows you to move away from these thoughts by not requiring chemicals like old systems did, such as mop and bucket cleaning.
When moping any germs that don’t stick to the mop are going to stay in the grout and on the tile. Cleaning equipment prevents this by spraying the area with high pressure water and then imminently sucking it up into the attached vacuum.
Using Machine cleaning eliminates worrying about needing to wash the mops after every job or your employees neglecting to laundry the mops and proceeding to spread the germs it picked up in the previous job back onto the floors.
Maintenance crews using dirty mops displays a negative image to any clients and other faculty that they don’t care about their cleaning equipment.
“It’s not professional and it shows you are not at the top of your game,” Bard from JANCOA says.
There are many benefits to using Cleaning equipment, for one it allows you to know that germs aren’t being left behind from using a dirty mop. Another is when you are cleaning the floor your using little to no chemical. This not only removes the idea that you are just covering up the bacteria, but that you are be environmentally friendly while preforming your cleaning too.
Knowing that you want to change from traditional ways of cleaning to Cleaning machines is only half the battle. After making this decision you have to know how big of a cleaning machine you need for the facility.
A machine that is to large will be difficult maneuver and get in the small nooks and crannies of the bathroom, While one that is to small can take excessive amounts of time to clean larger bathrooms.
Cleaning potential shouldn’t be the only concern as well as were will this machine be stored and do you have the room for a huge cleaning machine? Other questions should also arise, like how big is your budget for cleaning, and if you have the budget to train an employee on using an expensive cleaning machine?
These are questions that companies such as Gem Supply can help you solve, with onsite training and professionals that can help determine the size of machine you will need for your facility.
A slip occurs when there is too little traction or friction between the shoe and the walking surface, causing a person to fall backwards. A trip occurs when a person’s foot contacts an object in their way or drops to a lower level unexpectedly, causing them to be thrown off-balance in a forward motion. Lastly, a fall occurs when a person is too far off-balance.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, floors and flooring materials contribute directly to more than 2 million fall injuries each year. The causes of accidents are varied: walkways that are wet, oily or contaminated; floor surfaces that are in disrepair; loose or unanchored rugs or mats; spills; weather hazards such as ice, rain or snow; lack of employee training; and inappropriate footwear.
“When you look at slip-and-fall accidents there are many different elements to consider,” says Griffin. “It’s not just one element that makes the difference. There is almost an unlimited list of variables.”
According to the NFSI, 7 percent of accidents are attributed to training issues, such as improper use of floor finishes and cleaning chemicals. Untrained workers are more apt to make mistakes in equipment usage and chemical dilution, thereby exposing facilities to increased risk. Untrained cleaning personnel often make the mistake of using too much chemical on floors, when in fact, manufacturer dilution instructions must be strictly followed or a slip-and-fall disaster may strike.
Another cause of accidents is using improper chemicals that leave a film or residue on the surface of a floor. According to one chemical manufacturer, that film can create a barrier between the floor finish and a persons shoe. Instead of walking on the floor finish, people are walking on the residue, and that’s a slip hazard.
Cleaning chemicals and equipment certified as “High Traction” by NFSI are independently tested to keep walkways above the high traction threshold outlined in the ANSI B101.1-2009 national standard and, as such, should be used in facilities whenever possible, says Kendzior.
Another area of concern managers should be aware of when it comes to floor care chemicals is cross-contamination and using the same mop and bucket to clean multiple areas within a facility. This is especially important in food service where it is important that soil and bacteria are not transferred from one area to another.
“I’ve seen instances where workers use a mop in the kitchen and then that same mop in the bathroom, and then they take it out to the dining room and use it out there to do the entryway,” says Griffin. “You can see the grease on the floor and you can tell what has happened. There’s no excuse for taking grease out of the kitchen and moving it to the dining room, the entry or bathroom.”
Griffin recommends facilities use color-coded mops and buckets for different areas to avoid cross-contamination.
Cleaning procedures that don’t have anything to do with the actual cleaning of the floor — such as spraying airborne chemicals on baseboards, walls, or windows — should also be taken into consideration as potential slipping hazards.
“I had a slip-and-fall case not too long ago where somebody had sprayed metal cleaner on an elevator door and the overspray went down on the floor,” says Griffin. “When people came out of the elevator, the floor was extremely slippery and they fell down left and right.”
Training personnel on how to properly use the chemicals is extremely important. For example, workers should spray chemicals directly onto a cloth to prevent airborne particles from falling to the floor.
Managers can control some slip hazards, but they have little control over environmental factors such as tracked in snow, water, soil and dust, which is why it is important to stress prevention. Cleaning crews must be prepared to react to weather conditions and address concerns before they become a hazard inside the facility. Because most slips and falls occur on wet surfaces, managers are advised to use proper matting both in and outside entryways to reduce elements being tracked into a facility.
Social factors, such as footwear, or if someone is not paying attention to their surroundings, also come into play as a potential cause of accidents, says Kendzior. In fact, footwear accounts for 24 percent of all accidents, according to the NFSI. These are common regardless of the environment because the less contact a person has with the floor, the more likely they are to experience an accident.
A person’s age also increases the likelihood of floor-related accidents. According to the NSC, adults 55 and older are more prone to being victims of falls. The number of fall deaths among adults 65 or older is four times the number of fall deaths among all other age groups.
“People are now working well into their 70s, and that age demographic is the most likely to experience a slip, trip and fall and become seriously injured as a result,” says Kendzior.
Physical factors are also difficult to control because they are different for every building occupant or cleaning worker. This includes the potential for poor vision, lack of stability and walking struggles. NFSI statistics indicate that 9 percent of slip-and-fall accidents are due to a lack of proper hazard identification. The use of proper signage to identify slip-and-fall hazards can help prevent these physical factors.
“But even wet floor signs are not adequate when it comes to identifying a potential hazard,” says Griffin. “You really have to use barricades or safety caution tape. When you get to court, the lawyers will say that no one reads the signs until they’re laying on the floor.”
Signs or not, accident prevention by way of regular audits and testing of floors should be top of mind, says Kendzior. He stresses the importance of independent floor testing by a qualified auditor that utilizes ANSI national testing slip-and-fall safety standards on a regular basis. These testing standards quantify the traction requirement for pedestrian safety and the prevention of slips and falls.
This could change the character of a slip-and-fall negligence claim against a facility or deter a fraudulent claim from even being filed.
On average, a person takes 8,000 steps a day. However, it only takes one slip to destroy a life.
Each year, thousands of people fall victim to slip-and-fall accidents in the United States, resulting in sprains and strains, bruises and contusions, abrasions, lacerations and fractures. Slips and falls are also the leading cause of fatalities in the workplace and the cause of more than 20 percent of all disabling injuries. Workers’ compensation and medical costs associated with slip-and-fall accidents approach $70 billion annually, according to the National Safety Council (NSC).
“Falls are the leading cause of emergency room visits in the United States, totaling over 8 million a year,” says Russ Kendzior, president of the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI), Southlake, Texas. “More people will go to an emergency room for an accidental fall than any other form of injury, including car crashes.”
According to the 2013 Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index, falls ranked second among the leading cause of all workplace injuries in 2011 — accounting for 15.4 percent of direct costs associated with injuries in the workplace, or more than $11 billion. The Safety Index reports that “falls on the same level” are the second-most costly occupational injury with an estimated annual cost of $8.6 billion, trailing only overexertion ($14.2 billion). “Slips or trips without a fall” ranked seventh in workplace injuries at an estimated $2.6 billion annually.
Wet or damp floors aren’t the only cause of slip-and-fall accidents in facilities. Improper cleaning, footwear, and clutter can also cause hazards for building occupants. According to reports, nearly 50 percent of facility accidents can also be attributed to the type of flooring used.
Regardless of the cause, slip-and-fall accidents can cost facilities a great deal of money in liability, says Bill Griffin, president of Cleaning Consultants Inc., Seattle. With the average cost of a slip-and-fall accident estimated at $22,800 per incident, and the average workers’ compensation claim averaging $19,000, Griffin says custodial managers should not only understand the main causes, but also follow proper floor care safety standards to ensure their floors are safe for building occupants.
While Ebola is a highly infectious, enveloped virus, it is believed to be susceptible to a broad range of hospital disinfectants.
Within the CDC’s article “Interim Guidance for Environmental Infection Control in Hospitals for Ebola Virus,” there are currently no products that have a “specific label claims against the Ebola virus.” The CDC continues to to emphasis that a chosen product to combat The Ebola Virus should have a “Kill Claim” of less then 5 minutes. The reason for this recommendation is a fairly simple one of surfaces don’t stay wet long enough to disinfect when using more common disinfectants. Triple S offers multiple products with a “non-enveloped Virus” Claim, but only one has a claim time of under 5 minutes and that is Perisept, which has a claim of 2 minutes.
This is not to say there aren’t other products that we supply that have the same ability to satisfy the clams of the CDC and have a Dwell time of less then 5 minutes. But many of these other products are bleach based, which brings forward many acknowledged problems. Some of these are they don’t clean, leaves residue, requires rinsing, is corrosive, damages fabrics and the list just continues.
Further, of all the products with a claim of less than 5 minutes, virtually none of them carry a claim for C-diff! Perisept is an excellent choice for healthcare facilities because it carries all the claims recommended by the CDC for both Ebola and C-Diff, and has a very short dwell-time requirement.
References:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Website
Cold and flu season is upon us. Is your child’s school clean enough to prevent the spread of those germs? Watch as Bill Balek, ISSA’s director of legislative and environmental services, discusses the importance of cleaning and disinfection during the Health Watch news segment on CBS affiliate WDJT-TV. In this clip, he also explains how looks can be deceiving, when it comes to cleanliness.
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