Maintaining a clean environment is a top priority for hospital and healthcare settings. From sanitising surfaces to disinfecting patient rooms, powerful cleaning products are commonly used multiple times a day throughout a facility. But is it possible that strong cleaning solutions could be damaging important medical equipment?
While effectiveness is one of the main concerns when choosing a cleaning product, its compatibility with medical equipment surfaces should also be taken into consideration. Because expensive healthcare devices will likely require frequent disinfecting, it’s important to choose cleaning products and processes that will not harm or alter the equipment.
Disposable microfibre cloths are a great alternative to heavy disinfecting products in hospital and healthcare facilities. Here, we’ll take a look at how disposable microfibre cloths can help minimise damage and keep medical equipment clean and working effectively longer.
How to clean medical equipment
Environmental cleaning is critical in order to protect patients, staff and visitors across healthcare settings. Contaminated equipment can lead to transmission of infection or disease, so it’s required that all devices are cleaned and disinfected regularly.
Cleaning staff should minimise cross-contamination risk by using disposable, single-use products whenever possible. Cross contamination in patient rooms can be reduced even further by using one cloth per piece of equipment to ensure that a single cloth isn’t used to sanitise multiple surfaces, possibly spreading contamination.
Medical equipment should also be wiped in a single direction, going clockwise, and starting with the cleanest surfaces and ending with higher touch areas. Keep in mind that instruments like portable monitors are used often and across many different patients. Because of this, these high-use devices will require more frequent cleaning and sanitising than others.
Finally, it’s crucial that cleaning policies identify high touchpoints on machinery that need the attention of cleaning staff. For example, handles, buttons or bars will be touched repeatedly and should be disinfected between uses.
Possible damage with pre-moistened wipes
It’s clear that medical equipment, especially regularly used devices, undergo a lot of disinfecting processes throughout a single day. When used this frequently, pre-moistened wipes and other chemical cleaning products can be very strong and pose a risk to a variety of medical devices.
For example, plastic body-composite and shell materials of equipment may be softened over time by harsh cleaning chemicals found in pre-moistened wipes. Solutions that are beyond the required strength levels can lead to weakened and eventually cracked materials in medical equipment.
In addition to visible damage, certain chemical cleaning products can lead to malfunctions in touch screens. This poses a threat to their conductivity and performance. Any type of surface damage can cause equipment to fail, work inefficiently and even hold on to microorganisms making disinfection attempts impossible.
Disposable microfibre cloths and medical equipment
Unlike pre-moistened wipes, disposable microfibre cloths can effectively clean medical equipment using only water and without damaging surfaces or functionality. Microfibres are densely constructed synthetic fibres that penetrate microscopic surface pores that attract particles like dirt and microorganisms.
When used on medical equipment, microfibre cloths remove 99.9% of viruses and bacteria without the need for strong chemicals. Because the cloths don’t require any additional chemical cleaning solutions, medical devices aren’t exposed to strong products multiple times throughout the day.
Using disposable microfibre cloths as an alternative to pre-moistened wipes with cleaning agents delivers proper infection prevention, ensures environmental hygiene and can prolong the life of medical equipment.
The advantages of Rubbermaid’s Disposable Microfibre Cloths
HYGEN™ Disposable Microfibre Cloths offer innovative microbe-removing technology that is enhanced with zigzag scrubbers to remove dirt. This versatile cleaning solution is ideal for dusting and wet cleaning surfaces and works well across different medical equipment surfaces.
HYGEN™ cloths are colour-coded to help prevent cross-contamination and reduce the risk of healthcare associated infections. Cleaning staff are able to properly disinfect the body of healthcare equipment along with other surfaces in hospital rooms, without spreading contamination. Other benefits of cleaning with Rubbermaid’s Disposable Microfibre Cloths include:
Increased productivity
In addition to innovative cleaning solutions that protect hospital equipment, HYGEN™ Disposable Microfibre Cloths are perfect for healthcare settings to increase cleaning productivity. Cleaning staff are able to wipe down equipment with just water, making cleaning procedures more streamlined and without sacrificing sanitisation standards. Because microfibre cloths don’t damage or hinder the efficiency of devices, medical equipment continues to function properly so employees are also able to perform their jobs as needed.
Cost savings
Reduced water use and chemical use help facilities minimise costs in a number of ways. By maintaining the proper use and effectiveness of healthcare equipment, facilities don’t have to invest unnecessarily in device replacement or repairs. Hospitals are also able to save money by reducing the amount of cleaning solutions needed for sanitisation since HYGEN™ cloths are effective with just water.
Interested in learning more about the benefits of our HYGEN™ microfibre products? Download our Microfibre Selection Guide or request a free sample pack today!
