In 2006, TRSA led an initiative with backing from Ken Tyler, a former VA laundry chief, to push Congress to require the Veterans Administration (VA) to review outsourcing of its laundries in order to reallocate those dollars to patient care by closing costly on-premise VA hospital laundries. That effort fell short—despite a summit meeting between Tyler and then-VA Secretary Anthony Principi—as opponents mobilized against a bill that would have required scrutiny of VA outsourcing for laundries at its 170 hospitals and 1,063 outpatient facilities nationwide.

Fifteen years later, this early setback hasn’t exactly turned into a victory, but the reality ...