How Steam Cleaning is the Best Choice for Healthcare Cleaning
With COVID-19 flooding our news feeds every day, it’s natural for us to be concerned for those who are considered more vulnerable. With a pandemic being announced, hospitals and clinics need to maintain a high level of cleanliness and hygiene now more than ever, which raises the question of what’s the best way to deal with a growing risk of infection.
As effective as traditional cleaning methods may be, many would argue that more preventative measures need to be taken, which is exactly why we should turn to tried and tested methods of cleaning. Steam cleaning is an incredibly effective method of tackling micro-organisms and creating clean, uncontaminated environments and has been proven as a viable and efficient means of healthcare cleaning.
Steam cleaners have been shown to be capable of removing up to 99.99% of germs and bacteria from a wide variety of surfaces, making it ideal for disinfecting rooms as well as medical equipment. So from keeping every inch of a patient’s room spotless to ensuring the halls of a hospital are deep down clean and sterile, steam cleaning for healthcare has many applications and offers a peerless cleaning potential.
1. Cleaning Applications for Every Area
Dry steam uses only clean cold tap water, meaning it can be used on almost any surface. When used in conjunction with specialist steam cleaning healthcare tools; designed to provide powerful steam cleaning for specific tasks within a healthcare environment, the combination of the two provide an almost unbeatable sanitation solution.
These steam cleaning tools are proficient in cleaning every element of a patient’s room and/or the more general hospital environment; including cleaning floors, handrails, wheelchairs, curtains & blinds, furniture, beds, showers & bathroom fixtures, sanitary equipment, food trays and food carts, along with much, much more.
2. The Power of Steam - reducing anti-microbial resistance
Traditional cleaning methods often rely on two main factors; hot water and a cleaning chemical. While this is often a good approach for the likes of cleaning at home, HCAIs are a huge challenge for healthcare cleaning and professionals will know just how hardy bacteria can be when the environment is consistently subjected to sick patients. There is also the added danger that in tackling them, hospitals create a much more dangerous situation for the patients.
This where the power of steam truly shows its strength as, unlike traditional cleaning that can simply add to the antimicrobial resistance (or AMR) issue, the heat and power of steam cleaning requires little to no chemicals whilst still safely removing pathogens. Dry steam is effective at breaking down micro-organisms and preventing replication – all without adding to the growing problem of AMR and when used in conjunction with an integral vacuum, any surface debris and residual water droplets are safely vacuumed away with no risk of aerolisation.
In this way, steam cleaning delivers positive outcomes for patients both now and in the future. A prime example of a steam cleaner that has been scientifically tested and validated is the Provap Eco Vac that can combine with healthcare tools, or simply serve as the ideal commercial steam cleaner.
3. Eco-Friendly Cleaning
Steam cleaning is ideal for hospital cleaning as it provides a much more sustainable healthcare cleaning solution than methods that are reliant on different chemicals to deliver results. Not only is steam cleaning a quick, easy and effective way to sterilise equipment and surfaces; it’s also incredibly environmentally friendly. All that is needed is an electrical supply and a small amount of water for the steam.
One litre of water can create up to 16,000 litres of dry steam! Steam cleaners are efficient, safe and the ideal healthcare cleaning solution for hospitals and organisations looking to opt for zero-waste operations. In-use costs are substantially lower without costly consumables and, let’s be honest, the less chemicals we have flowing into our rivers and seas, the better!
4. Save Yourself From Unlikely Diseases
Although the main focus at the moment is to try and fight back against the Coronavirus, people often forget about harm and diseases that cleaning normally creates. These include, but are sadly not limited to, skin diseases, respiratory diseases and mental diseases, all usually caused by frequent contact with harmful chemicals or over-exertion. Steam cleaners remove both of these issues. First by not requiring any of these harmful chemicals to effectively clean and second by being so effective and easy to use that there’s less of a need for ‘good old fashioned elbow grease’.
Anyone whose job consists of trying to keep healthcare centres consistently clean will tell you just how demanding the job can be, which is why helping with exposure to chemicals and general efforts for cleaning means that steam cleaning can help with virtually every aspect of their role.