Linen Awareness Rounding – A Chance to Act
Many hospitals and healthcare systems are hiring expensive consultants to help them reduce their linen costs. Did you know HandCraft provides that service to their customers for free? With all the top priorities medical facilities face daily, linen awareness does not usually rise to the top of the list. We can help you navigate to achieve your goals with a dedicated team of experts at your side.
You may be asking yourself “Why would HandCraft help me keep my linen costs down?” The answer is simple. Two of HandCraft’s core values are Integrity and Responsibility. We want to partner with our customers and create lifelong relationships. We believe that providing the most cost effective, quality linen service and taking an honest approach is the best way to accomplish that!
Linen Rounds
One advantage HandCraft provides to customers is our Linen Awareness Rounding. This service is part of our Linen Awareness Program where we walk through your facility to search for linen management practices and talk with staff to determine strengths as well as improvement opportunities to save you money on linen loss costs.
Having a linen partner in your facility allows for a new set of eyes to view current linen management approaches. Some practices may be so routine that you do not recognize they could have an impact on your bottom line. There are often ah-ha moments when we explain how a certain procedure relates to the clean to soil ratio and linen loss.
After the walk thorough, we will provide you with a report of our observations with pictures included. This includes both your strengths and improvement opportunities. Both sections come with rationale or education related to how this practice affects linen loss or linen utilization. Each observation has recommendations of actions to consider.
Rounding for Outcomes
In “Hardwiring Excellence: Purpose, Worthwhile Work, Making a Difference” (2003), Quint Studer, a nationally acclaimed thought leader in healthcare, talks about rounding for outcomes. He describes these rounds as looking for both positive and negative feedback. The positive recognizes desired behaviors to continue and the negative is about process improvement.
One key point in Studer’s book is the need to act. Rounding for outcomes is not a check-the-box activity. It needs to be the start of an initiative to improve. There is always room for improvement and you must strive to get better. All it takes is one step to start. One step leads to another and soon you are making progress down the road to success.
Taking Action
This is where you come in. After you receive the report, here are action steps to accomplish—
- Read the report and note any easy wins that your staff can accomplish.
- Present the report to other departments and partner with them to determine a path forward.
- Monitor data and continue to act as it is easy for staff to fall back on previous behaviors.
- Talk to your staff about how to make these improvements and then set those actions in motion.
- Work with others in the organization to educate staff about linen management best practices to save money.
HandCraft is here to help with these action steps. Whether it is meeting to explain our report, presenting it to other departments or providing data analysis on linen loss, our customer service team members are experts in our field. We will walk your halls and walk you through the next steps.
Quint Studer uses imagery to express a point. Here is one of our favorites which explains the picture we used for this blog—There are two birds perched in a tree. One flies off. How many are left? You may have answered “one.” Thinking about it in another way, the answer is “two”—both birds exist.
Some decide to act.
Others will not.
Which bird will you join?
Contact HandCraft for more information
If you are looking for the right team to help prevent linen loss and decrease your linen loss costs, you found us. We have the experience, the industry-backed expertise, the technology and the professionals to help you achieve your goals. Remember to look at our Linen Awareness Program – healthcare linen management strategies that save costs and improve service.
About the Author
Dyan Troxel, MSN, RN
Dyan is a registered nurse with experience in several clinical and non-clinical settings including Surgical ICU, Neonatal ICU, Education, Process Improvement, and Healthcare Leadership.
