Hospital surface selection is rarely handled as a management-exclusive, default-choice selection process any more. Today, the choices that are made are informed by a multidisciplinary approach. One of the most important factors, from fixtures to operating room flooring, is how environmental services inform your selection.
Think Inclusively
Realize that environmental services can cover every surface selection. This includes the basic expectations, such as walls and floors. It can also include handrails, curtains, grout selection, even bathroom fixtures and frames for artwork.
Your initial reaction may be to think that this approach is overbearing, but be patient. These are all factors that can impact a healthcare environment HAI (healthcare-associated infections) risk. Environmental Services experts won’t necessarily jump on every little selection, but they will review them, make assessments, and give advice.
Walls in Healthcare Environments
This choice typically comes down to vinyl wall covering or paint. Wall covering is a solid choice, but adhesives must include a biocide element. Such components prevent both contamination and repel mildew. You should expect some moisture to accumulate over the years behind the wall covering.
Hospital surface selection isn’t just a case of materials, but also procedures. You’ll need a cleaning and disinfecting process that is effective without damaging the vinyl wall covering, the adhesive, or the seams.
As for paint, this is becoming an increasingly attractive choice. Advances in paint composition allow for antimicrobial paint, as well as additives that prevent bacteria from wearing the paint down.
You’ll also need monitoring and testing procedures to ensure antimicrobial properties are sustained and effective over time.
Flooring Selection
Here’s where hospital surface selection becomes most demanding. Flooring needs to be aesthetic and attractive to patients, guests, and the staff who work there day after day. It needs to sustain heavy foot traffic, patient transport, and heavy equipment transport. It needs to last for years on end without losing its ability to reject spills, bacteria, and mold.
Flooring also needs to be safe, absorbent to falls and preferably easy on the joints of hospital staff who walk the equivalent of miles every day they work. It needs to do all this without being a pain for your staff to clean every day and maintain over the long-term. On top of all this, it also has to come in within budget.
That’s not easy. You basically need a floor that does everything, no corners cut, without greatly expanding your purchasing budget or your operating costs. You also need to predict its life cycle accurately.
There’s a reason sheet vinyl, vinyl plank, and rubber have all proved so popular in terms of hospital flooring choice. Vinyl is available in bacteriostatic and fungistatic versions. All can be made bacteria-resistant with ease and are hypoallergenic. In the case of vinyl – sheet or plank – it can be easily and efficiently sealed through heat welding. That’s not even needed with rubber.
In addition, both surfaces are very easy to flush up the wall so that spills don’t seap in between the wall and floor.
Both rubber and vinyl are soft and help cushion falls, reducing injury risk and easing staff joint pain. At the same time, they’re each resilient to heavy foot traffic and durable for decades. They’re focused on ease of cleaning and maintenance.
For operating room flooring, consider heat welded vinyl for a proven flooring solution. Bacteriostatic, concrete solutions are also becoming popular for their durability and specialized design.
Floor Cleaning Procedures
Secure the look you want straight out of the gate. A floor cannot be maintenanced or cleaned into a shinier look than it started with. Administration should be clear on this because any burnishing of the floor is more likely to cause damage and reduce the floor’s antimicrobial effectiveness as well as lifespan. It can also kick particulates and even volatile organic compounds into the air, which isn’t good for patients, staff, or visitors.
If a cleaning procedure is likely to reduce the shine or to leave streaks or other blemishes in the appearance of a floor, everyone should know this before a single plank or sheet is laid down. Oftentimes, a certain floor is chosen for practical reasons but is disliked by administration for other reasons.
These kinds of disagreements can often be addressed before final decisions are made. It might take a simple change in material, finish, wear layer, color, design, or cleaning procedure. There’s usually a place to address the issue so that it never becomes a problem, but addressing it after the fact as a disagreement will often lead to a healthcare facility causing damage to its own surfaces.
These are the kinds of things that need to be clarified through a multi-disciplinary approach that communicates needs and wants between the administration, environmental services, custodial staff, and department staff who will be using the floor.
Conclusion
Traditionally, these kinds of choices have often been made in isolation and without enough input for how the surfaces will be used, cleaned, and maintained on a regular basis. This creates a costly disconnect between administration and staff that can leave the two side unhappy with each other, and inadvertently making decisions that reduce surface lifespans.
Everyone’s on the same side at the end of the day. Listening to each other’s’ needs will inform hospitals when making the best and most cost-effective solutions. Always remember that the most cost-effective solution today still needs to be the most cost-effective one tomorrow. A choice that trades increased maintenance costs or reduced surface lifespan in order to save money today…well, it really doesn’t save any money.
Oftentimes, this is what environmental services and specific departments highlight in asking for hospital surface selection to be reconsidered or reviewed.
A multi-disciplinary approach can deliver multi-faceted, multi-purpose surfaces. Don’t forget to add a trusted flooring contractor to your team; they can lend you their expertise in selecting, installing, and maintaining these assets.
