What Are the Benefits of Hiring a Commercial Cleaning Service in Medical Offices?

Can you name the germiest place in a medical office? Hint: It’s not the toilet seat, the waiting room chairs, or the door handle. It’s the clipboard pen you use to sign in. In fact, that tiny pen harbors 46,000 times more germs than the average toilet seat! 

This is just one example of why professional medical offices cleaning services is so vital. After all, your patients come to you to improve their health. Your staff shows up every day to do their part too. The last thing you want is an unsafe environment lurking with germs — especially in the era of COVID-19.

If you’ve been relying on staff rotation or general janitorial services to clean your office, it’s time to rethink your strategy. Medical offices and dental clinics present unique challenges when it comes to proper cleaning, sanitizing, and sterilization. In this post, we’ll dive into why it’s so important to hire a commercial cleaning service with experience in medical office cleaning. Keep reading to learn more.

1. Specialized Knowledge & Training

Cleaning your medical facility correctly involves much more than a quick spray and wipe. If the average office space is a breeding ground for germs, how much more so is your office where sick people come to get well?

Think about one of your busiest times of year — perhaps cold and flu season. If you fail to maintain a high level of cleanliness in your office space, you’ll be dealing with more than just sick patients. It’s likely that many of your nurses, receptionists, and other staff will become sick too. The more sick staff you have, the more likely you’ll have to run your practice on a skeleton crew. This will increase patient wait times, which will only spread more germs as they cough and sneeze in the waiting room.

One of the biggest benefits of hiring a commercial cleaning company is that they understand where and how germs spread. They have high-quality, specialized cleaning products that are gentle on the environment but lethal on germs. They know where to find the germiest places in medical offices — from that clipboard pen to the doctor’s stethoscope — and ensure they’re cleaned and sanitized.

2. Ensures Your Compliance

From hospital cleaning down to single-room office cleaning, there are rules and regulations that every medical facility must follow. You can probably recite CDC, HIPAA, and OSHA without thinking, but these organizations are much more than just acronyms. They’re regulatory agencies that set the standards for how you clean and sanitize your office space to ensure it’s hygienic for everyone.

A quick sweep and mop at the end of the day aren’t going to be enough to satisfy these requirements. There are even regulations about how to properly empty your wastebaskets. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering that one in 25 patients acquires some type of infection during a hospital stay.

The last thing you want to do is get slapped with a fine for compliance violations. Even worse, you could end up with a lawsuit if a patient can prove they became ill from visiting your office. It’s unlikely that you have the time (or desire) to review the long list of cleaning requirements and regulations from the powers-that-be.

Again, this is where medical offices cleaning services come to the rescue. They’ve studied up on all required cleaning standards and understand how to meet and exceed these expectations. Don’t leave your office cleaning to chance. Hire professionals who understand the medical industry and can ensure that you’re compliant with all rules and regulations.

3. Improved Patient Health

We’ve been hearing a lot about airborne pathogens since the pandemic began. But long before anyone first said “COVID-19,” doctors had to worry about the spread of other common airborne bacteria and viruses. The cold, the flu, pneumonia, and bronchitis are all spread through tiny droplets in the air. This means that even if you’re cleaning and sanitizing every surface in your medical facility, the air everyone breathes could still be full of germs.

If you weren’t already using them, no doubt you’ve switched over to medical-grade HEPA air purifiers since the pandemic started. This goes a long way in keeping your patients and your staff safe. However, have you stopped to think about what types of filters (if any) your cleaning staff uses on their vacuums and other cleaning equipment?

When you’re shopping around for cleaning services, be sure to ask if they use HEPA vacuum filters in their equipment. It’s also a good idea to ensure they’re familiar with protocols and programs for blood-borne pathogens. These details are easy to overlook, but they can go a long way in creating a safer, healthier environment for your patients. This is especially important if you work with patients that are recovering from surgery or have open wounds that are healing.

4. Improved Staff Health

Hiring medical office cleaning services won’t just keep your patients healthy. It will keep your staff healthier too. Think about all the tools and equipment you and your staff use on a daily basis. How many different hands touch those same keyboards, mobile tablets, telephones, pens, and doorknobs?

We’ve already established that the clipboard pen is the germiest place in the office, but it’s far from the only risk. A computer keyboard is 20,000 times germier than the average toilet seat, while a touchscreen device is 9,000 times germier. The more you and your employees come into contact with these items, the likelier the chance of someone getting sick.

Proper handwashing and sanitizing protocol are important, but they’re not enough on their known to prevent the spread of illness. To keep everyone on your team healthy and reduce absenteeism, you need professional cleaners who know the ins and outs of medical office sanitization. Considering the average bout of flu means an employee will miss between 3.7 and 5.9 days of work, keeping your staff healthy should be a top priority.

5. Increased Employee Productivity

Let’s keep the spotlight on your employees for now and discuss another major benefit of professional cleaning services: productivity. After all, you didn’t hire your nurses, assistants, and receptionists to clean the office. You hired them to help you attend to your patients.

That’s not to say it’s unreasonable to expect your staff to keep their work areas clean and organized. But every time they have to stop what they’re doing for a patient to clean or sanitize something, that’s cutting into their productivity. It’s also unrealistic to expect them to stay after-hours to clean the waiting room, mop the floors, or perform a deep-clean of the bathrooms. Even if they did perform these duties willingly, it wouldn’t be as thorough as a team of professional cleaners.

Hiring medical office cleaning services frees you and your employees to do your job, which is taking care of patients. Everyone can do their job more efficiently when they don’t have the distraction of random cleaning duties to attend to.

6. Saves You Money

This point might seem counterintuitive, but hear us out. It’s closely related to what we just talked about with your employees and expecting them to clean the office. You might reason that assigning them cleaning tasks will save you money over hiring professionals, but is that really the case?

Think about it this way. You hire your employees to perform specific duties related to healthcare. Adding a long list of deep-cleaning tasks to their already busy day will result in a poorly cleaned office and low employee morale. Unless they have a background in commercial cleaning, it will probably also take them a lot longer to complete their cleaning tasks than it would take a team of professional cleaners.

If you want to crunch the numbers, compare your employees’ hourly wages with the cost of hiring a commercial cleaning company. You’ll likely realize that the more economical choice is, in fact, to bring in professional cleaners. 

7. Better First Impressions

Medical offices cleaning services don’t just save you money; they can also increase the profitability of your practice. What makes us say that? Never underestimate the power of making a good first impression and what it can do for your business.

Let’s say a new patient arrives at your office for the first time. They can’t help but notice that the air smells fresh, the glass is sparkling clean, and there’s not a speck of dust in sight. Everything about your practice will exude good health and hygiene. That patient is sure to leave knowing that you placed a high priority on their well-being.

Now, let’s contrast that with a medical office that hasn’t been professionally cleaned. Your new patient arrives and can immediately spot the areas that received little or no attention. There are smudges on the windows. There are cobwebs in the corner and dust dangling from the air vents. There’s litter beneath the waiting room chairs and water spots all over the bathroom mirror.

Whichever office that patient walks into, you can guarantee they’ll share their observations and experiences with others. If this doesn’t seem like such a big deal, think again. The truth is that 92% of people rely on suggestions from friends and family members, and 74% say that word-of-mouth is the biggest influencer in their decisions. Patients are sure to notice your professionally cleaned office and recommend your practice to others.

8. Reduced Maintenance Costs

Another way professional cleaning services can save you money is by reducing maintenance and repair costs. The cleaner your office space, the longer your most expensive equipment and systems will last.

For example, how often do you clean or change the filter on your air-conditioning units? How much dust is building up on your computers, servers, and other electronic equipment? What about the specialized medical equipment you need to do your job? A quick wipe with a dust cloth won’t be enough to keep them operational in the long run.

Professional cleaners ensure your office environment is free of dust and other airborne particles. This means you won’t have to worry about dust clogging your air filters, computers, and expensive medical equipment. As a result, you’ll experience fewer repair bills and won’t have to replace your equipment as often.

9. Enhanced Protection Against Theft and Damage

This might not be the first thing that springs to mind when you think about commercial cleaners, but let’s consider this final benefit. No doubt your medical office is home to valuable equipment, expensive medications, and sensitive patient information. You need to be incredibly selective about who you allow into your office for cleaning — especially after hours when no one else is around.

You can be sure that a company that specializes in medical office cleaning runs thorough background checks on all their employees. They also provide extensive training about how to clean medical equipment, electronics, and other expensive items. You’ll be able to rest easy knowing your office’s valuables are in the hands of honest, well-trained professional cleaners.

Medical Office Cleaning Services in New York and Beyond

Commercial cleaning services are a valuable asset for all types of businesses. For hospitals, doctor’s offices, and other medical facilities, they’re essential. After all, your patients come to you to get well. Without proper Medical office cleaning and sanitization, they could end up sicker than when they arrived.

Don’t take that chance with your patients or staff. Especially during the era of COVID-19, the wise course of action is to bring in professional cleaners who can get the job done right every time. We’ll ensure every inch of your medical office is sparkling clean, from the bathrooms to the waiting room to that germ-filled pen on the clipboard.

Is your medical office or dental clinic located in or near New York City? Are you ready to bring in a team of professionals with decades of experience in cleaning, sanitizing, and sterilizing medical facilities? We proudly serve businesses located throughout New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Give us a call at (888) 906-9776 or use our online request form to get in touch. We’ll happily discuss your office cleaning needs and provide you with a personalized quote.