Home-Wash Critique Powers TRSA Webpage on Healthcare Garments

Posted April 7, 2023 at 2:41 pm



TRSA has updated its 10-page white paper that portrays uniform rental as the superior risk-minimization option for healthcare wearers and their employers. Published initially in 2018, the updated Curbing the Infection Risk of Healthcare Garments factors pandemic-era research and consumer behavior into explaining why linen and uniform service laundering is more hygienic than home washing.

Aimed at healthcare professionals who read scientific papers, Curbing the Infection Risk highlights findings that domestic laundering lacks the control and decontamination monitoring of hospital-grade washing. Studies reported in the TRSA paper build awareness that when a home laundry process fails to eliminate contamination, it can spread to other items in the laundry load.

Readers are persuaded that a healthcare facility averts this risk by having these garments professionally laundered by a Hygienically Clean Healthcare certified linen and uniform service. Evidence is growing, the paper shows, that the risk-reduction value of such a practice is worth the additional cost to a healthcare facility that currently makes employees responsible for such washing.

Curbing the Infection Risk is available for download on Hospital-Grade Laundry: Key to Garment Hygiene, a new TRSA webpage that contains source material used in the paper:

Academic Research Reports. A university study finds viruses similar to the strain that causes COVID-19 can survive on commonly worn fabrics for up to three days, with polyester posing the highest risk. In another study, researchers question microbial contamination removal effectiveness in light of emphasis in domestic washing machine manufacturing on energy efficiency and hot water use reduction (2020)

Guidance from Healthcare Professionals. From the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), updated guidance for NHS operations covers variations in local policies on uniforms and workwear while highlighting examples of good and poor practices, addressing the importance of infection-control requirements to the public. Association of Surgical Technologists guidelines for supervisors, risk management and surgical team members direct their development and implementation of policies and procedures for laundering scrub attire.

Journal Articles. The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses’ (AORN’s) Outpatient Surgery magazine reviews the latest attire recommendations, including a warning not to wash at home. Healthcare Hygiene magazine presents a compendium of research and regulators’ guidance in response to the general public’s growing knowledge of the possible presence of pathogens on scrubs and other attire, and healthcare workers’ risk of bringing them into their home environments.

Consumer Media. A well-traveled Forbes reporter highlights the international prevalence and historic U.S. value of keeping scrub-wearing within healthcare facilities and a manufacturer of high-fashion scrubs agrees it’s generally not OK to wear healthcare uniforms in public.

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