Soft surface sanitation
Why curtain cleaning matters in patient rooms
Standard practice cleans hospital privacy curtains only when they are visibly soiled or after an isolation discharge. Accord Curtains puts them on a schedule instead.
687,000
Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in U.S. acute care hospitals in 2015, per the CDC estimate Accord Curtains cites.
The figure behind our program
That is 687,000 HAIs in a single year. Accord Curtains also cites the CDC estimate that about 72,000 patients with HAIs died during hospitalization, and that about 1 in 25 U.S. hospital patients is diagnosed with an HAI.
These are national figures about infections in general. They do not measure curtains, and we make no claim that a clean curtain prevents any single infection.
A curtain is a soft surface
A cubicle curtain hangs from a ceiling track around a patient bed or exam space, with an open mesh panel at the top. The fabric below it is a soft surface, and Accord Curtains’ position is that soft surfaces trap dust, bacteria and contaminants in hospitals, outpatient centers and nursing homes.
Its further point is about routine. Because standard practice waits for a visible stain or an isolation discharge, many curtains are never routinely cleaned.
That is the gap our five curtain programs close: a date on the calendar, a crew that takes the curtains down and a label that shows the last cleaning.
How often should cubicle curtains be cleaned?
Accord Curtains runs Routine Scheduled Cleaning at four frequencies, and your Environmental Services and Infection Control staff choose the one that fits the unit.
ROUTINE CLEANING
After an isolation discharge
A curtain compromised by a patient with a highly transmissible illness does not wait for the next cycle. On-Call Isolation Discharge Cleaning keeps uniformed installers on site or nearby, ready to take your call, so Environmental Services can hand over responsibility for that room’s curtains.
Customers in Ohio, Florida, Indiana and North Carolina
Set a cycle your team can keep
Start with Routine Scheduled Cleaning, then see how barcode tracking in ACTS records every take-down and re-hang down to the room.