The rise of Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) is prolific amongst the elderly, sick, and young. The New England Medical Journal reports that in healthcare facilities alone 721,000 HAIs are reported annually contributing to 75,000 mortalities. Hospitals schools, daycares, nursing homes, and even the hospitality industry are implementing color-coded microfiber systems to combat this. Monarch Brands has the following to say about facilitating the use of this cleaning system.
What colors are used for each cleaning task?
There is no defined answer users designate a specific color for a particular job. When groups are trained, four colors are used in the wiping system and two colors in the moping systems. It’s made as easy as possible to remember so that after a few days after implementing the program it becomes natural. Here are the recommend colors designating for specific tasks but they can always be changed to fit plans.
Cloths
- Yellow – Dry Dusting and polishing.
- Red – Restrooms area such as toilets and urinals, hazard areas.
- Blue – Glass, and mirrors.
- Green – General areas such as desks, tables, kitchens, sinks, water fountains.
Mops
- Red – Restrooms & hazard areas.
- Green – General areas such as classrooms, hallways, patient rooms.
How to prevent cross-contamination
Use a specific mop for each room. Unlike traditional cotton mops, microfiber flat mops take up little space and can be stacked to use a mop for every room. Never take the mop that was just used in the restroom and bring those germs out into the general areas and hallways. Clean the bathroom, take off the mop, put it in your laundry bag, and start fresh with a new mop when moving into a new area. This will make sure whatever the germs are in a particular area are contained.
So why not just use a clean cloth or mop of the same color?
A color coding system at a local university was recently implemented. While explaining to the group that they should never use a red towel outside of the bathroom somebody asked, “Why don’t you just use a clean red cloth?”
The answer is, though using a brand new clean red cloth to clean a water fountain in the hallway, a person may have just seen you using a red cloth cleaning a toilet or a urinal. Users don’t want the person that is observing the situation going to a supervisor complaining that the same town was used to clean the fountain right after the bathroom. They have no idea a change was made to a clean cloth and will assume the worst. Keep up the color coding procedure to ensure customers that cleaning procedures are properly in place.
Resistant to change?
Color coding microfiber training is not always easy. Breaking the employees cleaning routine is often a challenge. Comments are frequent like, “You don’t know what it’s like cleaning 25,000 square feet a night. We don’t have time to worry about the color towels we are using.” Even so, the potential of spreading harmful germs from one area to another is high. Be sure to let a team know that as they get used to the system they will feel more comfortable and it will help them break the usual routine. Eventually, the team will appreciate and embrace using new microfibers for each room. It’s more sanitary for them.
Clean smarter, save lives. That should be the rallying cry of every aspect of your facilities maintenance team.
Media Contact:
Andrew Moore
Director of Brands & Marketing
(215) 482-6100 x332
andrewm@monarchbrands.com
About Monarch Brands
With roots established in 1947, Monarch Brands delivers high quality and value-priced textiles from manufacturers around the world. By leveraging deep sourcing relationships and purchasing power, Monarch Brands works with distributors to design hospitality programs that work for each client.
