December 17, 2007—A survey conducted recently by American Laundry News found that nearly half of the respondents say they’ve say reexamined the infection control procedures utilized in their laundry or facility following the media’s recent coverage of MRSA-related infections in the community at large.
Of the respondents, 57.1% provide laundry service to a healthcare facility as an on-premise laundry; 9.5% provide service as a contracted, cooperative laundry; and 9.5% provide service as a contracted, outsourced laundry.
Just over 57% said their laundry service has been assessed within the last six months by an infection control professional from their institution or for a healthcare client.
One-third of the respondents said they’ve been contacted this year by a vendor trying to sell a product that it says is designed to combat MRSA.
None of the laundry services responding to the survey results has been identified as having caused or contributed to a patient’s hospital-acquired infection.
Only 23.8% of respondents think that healthcare workers can adequately launder their scrubs at home.
