SALT LAKE CITY — April 17, 2020 — Alsco Inc., the international linen and uniform rental provider to health care organizations as well as automotive and industrial facilities around the world, has recently achieved the Hygienically Clean Healthcare Certification for its Santa Rosa, California; St. George, Utah; and Las Vegas, Nevada, facilities. Those locations join the following Alsco facilities west of the Mississippi River that also carry the Hygienically Clean Healthcare Certification: Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose in California; Reno (Carson City), Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Shreveport, Louisiana. In addition, Alsco has certified the following locations on the East Coast: Charlotte, Raleigh and Durham in North Carolina and Washington, D.C. (Lanham, Maryland).
“These achievements are a commitment that Alsco will continue to follow government guidelines and best management practices when processing health care textiles,” said Dave Prink, Alsco regional manager. “We now have seven facilities in my region that have achieved TRSA Hygienically Clean Healthcare Certification. So this is a very exciting achievement for Alsco.”
Hygienically clean has been the quantified, validated standard and measure for hygienically clean textiles in North America since 2011. Achieving this certification reflects Alsco’s commitment to best management practices (BMPs) in laundering as verified by on-site inspection. Certification also confirms its capability to produce hygienically clean textiles as quantified by ongoing microbial testing based on established hygienically clean health care textile methods and standards.
The Hygienically Clean Healthcare certification confirms that Alsco is continuing its dedication to infection prevention, compliance with recognized industry standards and processing health care textiles using BMPs as described in its quality assurance documentation, a focal point for Hygienically Clean inspectors’ evaluation. The independent, third-party inspection also confirms evidence of the following:
Employees are properly trained and protected
Managers understand regulatory requirements
OSHA compliant
Physical plants operate effectively
To achieve initial certification, laundries pass three rounds of outcome-based microbial testing, indicating that their processes are producing Hygienically Clean Healthcare textiles and diminished presence of yeast, mold and harmful bacteria. The laundries also must pass a facility inspection.
This process eliminates subjectivity by focusing on outcomes and results that verify textiles cleaned in these facilities meet appropriate, hygienically clean standards and BMPs for hospitals, surgery centers, medical offices, nursing homes and other medical facilities.
Hygienically Clean Healthcare Certification acknowledges laundries’ effectiveness in protecting health care operations by verifying quality control procedures in linen, uniform and facility services operations related to the handling of textiles containing blood and other potentially infectious materials.
Certified laundries use processes, chemicals and BMPs acknowledged by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, American National Standards Institute and others. Introduced by TRSA in 2012, Hygienically Clean Healthcare brought to North America the international cleanliness standards for Hygienically Clean healthcare linens and garments used worldwide by the Certification Association for Professional Textile Services and the European Committee for Standardization.
Objective experts in epidemiology, infection control, nursing and other health care professions work with Hygienically Clean launderers to ensure the certification continues to enforce the highest standards for producing clean health care textiles.
“This certification process has engaged our plant employees at all levels and has required a strong commitment to ensure they were ready on inspection day,” said Prink. “Passing the TRSA inspection is testament that Alsco plants are running at a high level of operational efficiency and that our employees are well trained and productive.”
Hygienically clean reflects the evolution of health care laundry certification in light of growing global concerns about infection control. It also documents practices that ensure elimination of potentially harmful microbial content while adding quantifiable verification of continuous improvement in overall cleanliness.
About TRSA
Millions of people rely every day on the clean uniforms, garments, linens, towels, walk-off mats and other products that TRSA-member commercial laundries provide. TRSA serves its members by promoting and protecting its companies and educating owners/operators, executives and management through professional development independent certifications that conform to internationally recognized standards, advocacy and research. For more information about TRSA and its certifications, visit http://www.trsa.org.