Tour of Local Hospital Laundry

[davidblazor]

I was given a tour of our local hospital laundry in Astoria Oregon yesterday and thought I would share what I got to see. I did not have my phone with me so I could not take pics. Our local hospital only has a 29 inpatient capacity, 8 bed ER and 8 bed out patient surgery service department. The laundry also services the local doc offices, physical therapy center and cancer treatment center as well.

The lady giving me the tour said that they process around 4,000 pounds of laundry Monday-Friday and that the laundry shuts down for weekends and Major holidays. There is 5 employees in the laundry department 1 on soil side and 4 on clean side.

It was very interesting to me that they fold all the laundry by hand. Here is a list of the machines I got to see.

The wash aisle/ soil side

1) 100 pound soft mount Milnor washer
1) 135 pound solid mount Milnor washer
1) 125 pound solid mount Unimac washer
1) 75 pound solid mount Milnor washer
1) 35 pound solid mount Unimac washer

and for the dry room:

1) 170 pound Ipso dryer
1) 170 pound Milnor dryer
1) 30 pound Speed Queen dryer

The chemicals are supplied by Ecolab and are flushed in to the machines thru a manifold system. The lady said there was 5 chemicals used in the laundry and that they come in 15 gallon drums.

The dirty and clean side of the laundry are separated by a sliding door like at the grocery store. I was surprised that the hospital had a in house laundry but I was also surprised that they did not use barrier system washers like BRAUN, or MILNOR STAPH GUARD machines.

In the mid-late 90's I worked at the hospital where my son was born. I was a cook in the hospital but had friends that worked in the laundry there. In 1997 the hospital was told that the equipment in the laundry was very outdated and was told to replace or contract the laundry out so the hospital started sending the laundry out as it was cheaper. That hospital had a 200 bed inpatient capacity and the laundry staff was placed in other departments. In comparison the laundry I saw yesterday and the hospital where I used to work looked the same by volume amount.

David

 

[toploader55]

WOW...

I would think that a 100 lb Milnor would have to be a solid mount.

The Link is to some Gorgeous Machines

http://www.milnor.com/product-category/washer-extractors/

 

[alr2903]

The classic "Diving Bell" is gone from the coin ops

http://www.milnor.com/product-category/coin-op/

 

[toploader55]

It almost looks like a re badge.

Those Milnors are built like a fortress.

 

[davidblazor]

chemical consumption

I wonder what the chemical consumption would be. The lady said they do 4000 pounds of laundry a day. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[norgeway]

We have

3 big Milnors at the retirement community where I work, there is a laundromat in my hometown that still has some of the old round topped Milnors as well as a few Norge front loaders.

 

[launderess]

Hygienic Barrier laundries:

UK and elsewhere have been trying to get more healthcare/hospital laundries to go with barrier machines, but places don't like them. Main objection is the increased cost of design and installation of such washers. Once you build something into a wall obviously moving it or whatever isn't going to happen easily if at all.

Also the entire space must then be designed around the walls that separate "clean" from "dirty" linen. In best designed places airflow goes from the latter to former so as not to pull "dirty" air into the clean spaces. In terms of personnel you technically are supposed to keep clean and dirty away from each other. That is each pretty much stick to their own side. If someone has to go from one to the other (especially dirty to clean) they should wash, and or perhaps even change uniform.



Chemicals:

Commercial/industrial dosage chemicals vary but are so concentrated that often five or less ounces are good for 100/lbs. of wash.

Some suppliers (Ecolab is famous for this) don't even tell the laundry proper dosage. Chemical rep arrives, sets things up and programs the machines (washer and or dispenser system), leaving workers only to press buttons for choice of cycles, weight, soil level, etc...

If you manage to find or see industrial laundry chemicals often the containers do not have dosage information, that is considered "proprietary" and you are advised to contact the distributor/sales rep for information. As we have discussed previously here in the group Ecolab is famous for not giving up any information. If you purchase their stuff from another source than approved dealer don't bother calling customer service. They will only refer you to local supplier/sales rep.

Obviously processing so much laundry per day/week means places want to keep supply costs under control. Hence products that are very concentrated that require relatively little per load to get the job done.

Hard or soft mount machines.

Read somewhere that when it comes to larger H-axis washers soft mount is the way to go. Washers that process a few hundred pounds of wash at a go would generate forces that even when bolted into several feet of concrete could cause structural damage. Remember all that bolting does is send the forces generated down into the flooring to dissipate via the building. I've stood several feet away from a SQ 50lb washer at launderette spinning a heavy and or unbalanced load; one could feel the vibrations coming from the floor. This from a machine bolted into a concrete pedestal several feet deep.

 

[launderess]

Hospitals and laundries

Years ago it was pretty much standard for most hospitals to have in-house laundries. However over the past few decades labor laws, labor costs, environmental rules and other factors have just made it too expensive, so places began sending wash out to contract laundries. There are even places that do not own their own linens, but like restaurants or hotels the stuff is provided by a "linen service".

A big push behind getting rid of in-house laundries was hospitals looking at their structure and business models. Many decided they were in the "healthcare business" and pared down and or eliminated things that didn't directly relate to their core business model. It is often far cheaper to send out laundry rather than have it done in house.

Laundries are both a capital and ongoing expense. The former is due to the purchase of equipment and whatever else needed to have a laundry. The other expense comes from the day to day costs associated with running the thing such as staffing, supplies, etc...

All commercial laundries from laundromats on up operate on an economy of scale principle; you want to keep all machines "turning" as much as possible. Equipment that is sitting idle not only costs money, but isn't bringing in anything either.

OTOH the more wash that comes in means more work and those with largest machines/equipment can take advantage of economies of scale.

For hospital laundry it looks like this:



On a smaller scale:

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/dirty-jobs/videos/diaper-cleaner/[this post was last edited: 2/3/2017-17:02]

 

[whirlykenmore78]

Hygenic barrier:

While I have not seen such a laundry application in real life I have seen a dishroom set up this way.   This was when touring the dietary department of a large hospital in suburban Minneapolis.

The patient dishes came down an elevator and were scrapped on a conveyor belt as were the cafeteria dishes.  The kitchen crew parked carts of dirty pans outside a side entrance to the dishroom.  Dishwashers never left the dishroom cooks never went in.  once the dishes had been scrapped and pans scrubbed the dish crew loaded them into a massive Hobart flight dishwasher that protruded through a wall shared with the kitchen.  Dietary aides in the kitchen unloaded the dishwasher conveyor.  The "Business end of the dishwasher, About 30 feet of it was in the dishroom.  The blower dryer and unload end, About 20 feet were in the tray assembly area.  This made sense to me to keep whatever the patients had out of the kitchen.

WK78

 

[cam2s]

Milnor Washers

We use 2 60lb capacity Milnor Washer Extractors at the hotel I work at. They are indeed built like tanks. We also use Ecolab products, however we use the solid chemicals. It is set up for three chemicals, detergent, destainer, and softener. We have spotters and pretreats to hand apply and Power Pacs for reclaim. The machines and chemicals are excellent at cleaning, they see some nasty things day in and day out .

Cameron

 

[goatfarmer]

My wife used to work in the local hospital's laundry. Really enjoyed the job. Then the hospital decided to sub contract the laundry work to a local company that does several hospitals. Probably 20 people lost their jobs.

 

[jkbff]