More than half of the contiguous United States was in some form of drought as of August 16, 2022, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Most experts expect the trend to continue. Many states, such as California, already have implemented water usage restrictions with...
Insights
Monkeypox Safety Information
MONKEYPOX SAFETY INFORMATION (Sourced from CDC, DHS, EPA, CA Department of Health, LA County Department of Health, WHO) Monkeypox Virus (MPXV) is a zoonotic virus (a virus that originates in animals) that belongs to the same group of viruses as the Variola major...
Skills Facility Maintenance Managers Need
Facility maintenance has changed a lot in recent years. It still calls for ensuring the safety, security, and compliance of facilities. However, as buildings and society become increasingly complex and cleanliness remains in the post-COVID-19 pandemic spotlight,...
Monkeypox – Infection Prevention
What Employees and Providers Need to Know About Monkeypox With over 20,000 cases worldwide, monkeypox has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization, and last week the Biden Administration declared the outbreak a national health...
What Hospital EVS Providers Need to Know About Monkeypox
Massachusetts Department of Public Health officials have confirmed the first U.S. case of monkeypox in a traveler who returned to the states from Canada. The first suspected case was being investigated in California at the time of publication, while 260 cases in 22...
Hospital EVS Providers: Creating Clean Areas for Infection Prevention
There are many areas in a hospital that it is essential for hospital environmental services (EVS) providers to properly maintain. ”One location that may be overlooked is the EVS cleaning services area, where EVS cleaning technicians store, prepare, and reprocess their...
Pandemic Preparedness for Commercial Cleaning Services
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, most hospital environmental services (EVS) providers were able to respond with the appropriate cleaning and disinfecting protocols since most EVS technicians are trained in terminal cleaning. However, for many commercial cleaning...
Sluice Room Checklist for EVS Providers
"What is a dirty utility room?" Many people believe the answer is that it is where soiled linens go. But as environmental services (EVS) providers in hospitals and workers in other types of medical cleaning services know, this is not correct. A dirty utility room,...
EVS Providers Are Moving Out(side)
Hospital environmental services (EVS) providers were once providers of hospital cleaning services. Today, however, as more patients seek help from urgent care or other outpatient medical facilities, an increasing number of EVS technicians may never set foot in a...
4 Reasons Commercial Cleaning Services Ain’t What They Used to Be
If you recently hired a commercial cleaning services provider after not doing so for a while, you may have been shocked. It’s not like it was in the old days when providers of commercial janitorial services promised a thorough cleaning of everything for one low price....
Sustainability in Healthcare: 4 Innovations to Make EVS Providers More Sustainable
Note: This is the third in a series of how EVS providers and facility managers can help their hospitals become more sustainable. Environmental services (EVS) providers have more of a role to play in making hospitals more sustainable than many realize. As discussed in...
Sustainability & EVS in Healthcare
EVS & FM Working Together to Reduce Energy Consumption Note: This is the second in a series of how EVS providers and facility managers can help their hospitals become more sustainable. Sustainability in hospitals is essential from an environmental viewpoint, but...
Sustainability in Healthcare: Water Waste
How Hospital EVS Providers Can Scale Back Their Water Usage This is the first in a series of how EVS providers and facility managers can help their hospitals become more sustainable. The studies on hospital water usage are abundant—and alarming. Yet there are ways...
EVS Providers: Beyond Patient Protection
Most people consider hospitals a place of healing. Yet hospitals are one of the most hazardous places to work, and healthcare environmental services (EVS) providers face many unique dangers daily. The Risks for EVS Healthcare Workers In 2019, U.S. hospitals recorded...
Why Healthcare Housekeeping Services Has a New Name
7 Unique Challenges Today's EVS for Hospitals Face There is a lot for workers in healthcare housekeeping services to keep up with these days, starting with their name. Once referred to as janitorial or custodial services, this morphed into hospital or healthcare...
Hospital Environmental Services: Infection Prevention vs Control
For hospital environmental services (EVS), being well-versed in infection prevention and infection control is vital to their safety and well-being and that of hospital patients, staff, and visitors. However, not all hospital cleaning services workers realize the...
Why Hospital Cleaning Services Clean Floors Multiple Times Daily
It was once believed hospital cleaning services only needed to clean the floors in the facility once a day, and maybe not even that often, depending on the area’s use. In fact, in 2003, the CDC maintained, “Floors generally have low patient exposure (i.e., are...
COVID-19, Omicron & What You Need to Know About Air Purifiers
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 and its Delta and Omicron variants, can linger in the air for several hours, if not longer. It can also infect people at distances of up to 6 feet; in some “preventable circumstances,” such as in enclosed spaces with...
Science-Based Cleaning Protocols for Hospital EVS
Servicon recently completed a two-month study on the best cleaning methodology for hospital environmental services (EVS). The study compared three different cleaning protocols used by Servicon’s hospital EVS workers to determine which might be most effective. The...
Hospital Environmental Services & Hypochlorous Acid
What disinfectant is nontoxic, practical, available, and flexible enough for use by hospital environmental services (EVS for hospitals) in a wide variety of areas? OK, the article’s title might have provided a clue, but if you guessed hypochlorous acid (HOCl), you are...
5 Reasons to Outsource Your Commercial Cleaning Services
People often ask, "Why should I outsource cleaning services?" or "Can commercial janitorial services save you money?" These are good questions. Equally important is the answer provided by a professional commercial cleaning services company you are considering hiring....
5 Steps for Hospital Environmental Services to Combat MRSA
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is an infectious disease that hospital environmental services (EVS) and other hospital cleaning services must be familiar with to help prevent its spread. Facts EVS for Hospitals Should Know About MRSA MRSA is a...
Facing Omicron Head On
For many people, the recent holidays didn’t feature the large family get-togethers they did in years past. In fact, for many, it felt like a replica of December 2020, when even masks and social distancing weren’t enough. Meanwhile, for those specializing in commercial...
EVS for Hospitals – Winning the Battle Against C. Diff
Much is written about the role of hospital environmental services (EVS) in the fight against healthcare-acquired infections (HAIS) for a good reason. EVS for hospitals plays a significant role in reducing many types of HAIs, including Clostridioides (formerly known as...