NORTH AMERICA
On-premise laundries (OPLs) must hold themselves up to the same sort of healthcare laundry standards as commercial laundries and cooperatives.
In their collaborative article ‘Proper Laundering Aids In Infection Prevention’ Rocco Romeo, president of the International Association for Healthcare Textile Management, and John Scherberger, president of the Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council (HLAC), highlights 10 HLAC principles that directly apply: functional separation, hand hygiene, environmental cleaning, cart disinfection, linen protection during transport, air flow, sorting, washing, drying, and finishing.
Romeo and Scherberger observe that more hospitals are beginning to recognize that their laundries need to be part of their overall infection prevention strategies. As such, they're asking for "formal acknowledgment from the laundry verifying that its processes are based on the highest professionally recognized standards for patient safety and infection prevention." This "same scrutiny" and "similar healthcare laundry standards" should apply to on-premise laundries.
