What’s So Special about Cleaning a Medical Office Building?
An office is an office is an office, right? Wrong, completely and totally wrong. Not all offices are created equal when it comes to cleaning. While some services overlap, medical office buildings require more specialized and detailed cleaning than your average Joe office.
So what’s different about a medical office?
Sick people go there. That’s first and foremost. Medical offices are definitely not “spray and wipe” environments. Cleaning and disinfecting needs to continually focus on eliminating disease-causing bacteria and pathogens especially life-threatening superbugs, such as the yeast Candida auris that can be present in exam and waiting rooms, labs and even common areas such as stairways, entryways, and restrooms.
The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control recommends thorough daily cleaning and disinfecting of these spaces using an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered hospital-grade disinfectant, following the manufacturers direction for use and applying the product for the correct contact or “dwell” time. Reusable equipment must also be sterilized and trash and soiled linens must be removed throughout the day.
Pediatricians’ offices offer additional cleaning challenges. Sick kids with runny noses touch everything in sight and sometimes with their mouths. These office spaces require extra special attention to surfaces and touch points four feet and lower.
More people go there. With physician tenants receiving a constant flow of patients daily, medical office buildings tend to have heavier foot traffic than regular commercial office buildings. The more people filtering through a space, the dirtier it gets, and the more likely that cross-contamination and the spreading of germs will occur.
It takes longer to clean. Because cleaning and disinfecting a medical office properly requires special attention and involves more specialized techniques not needed when cleaning a typical office space, it generally takes longer to clean a medical office building than it does a regular commercial office space.
It often costs more to clean. Longer cleaning times, strict cleaning guidelines and the need for specialized services to ensure staff and patient safety, as well as training janitorial staff in more involved cleaning techniques and the proper use of specialized tools or equipment, often leads to unavoidable increased costs for the customer. Simply put, a medical office mostly likely is going to cost more to clean than a regular office space.
If you manage a medical office building, it’s important to understand exactly what is needed from your janitorial team and how cleaning times and cost may differ from a regular commercial office space. At 4M we train our Team Members in the most efficient and innovative cleaning techniques for all kinds of spaces, so you can rest assured no matter what type of facility you manage, you are getting our “A” game all the time. It’s just another way we deliver the best, innovative, safe, and sustainable cleaning and service solutions for our business. To learn more, give us a call or CLICK HERE to contact us.
