There’s a new movie out with a host of Hollywood A-Listers that is surely poised to have audiences grabbing for their Purell anti-bacterial hand gel. “Contagion” tells the story of a woman (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) who returns from a business trip in Hong Kong and dies soon after from an unknown infection. Her young son dies a few days later. And thus begins a worldwide epidemic.
As Kate Winslet’s character explains, the average person touches their face three to five times every waking minute. In between, they’re touching doorknobs, ATM machines, handrails, water fountains, and each other. All this contact means you could go from Patient Zero to a billion in 30 steps, or 120 days. The point is that infection is easily spread.
There is nowhere that infection prevention is more vital than in a hospital, where patients are already susceptible to infection due to illness, weakened immune systems, recent surgery, or other genetic factors. At ARAMARK we take infection prevention very seriously and the primary concern of our Environmental Services group is to keep patients safe and healthy.
To highlight the importance of infection prevention, October 16th – 22st marks International Infection Prevention Week, first proclaimed by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Since then, the event has vastly expanded its reach across the globe. The Association for Professionals in Infection Control (APIC) make it their mission to educate people and prevent infection, and International Infection Prevention Week (IIPW) is their chance to highlight the infection prevention profession and its work in educating healthcare professionals and administrators, legislators, and consumers.
As part of that commitment, our EVS employees are adding to our existing infection prevention efforts by performing random inspections to confirm that all high-touch areas in patient rooms (like bed rails, tray tables, call buttons, and phone) are being cleaned and sanitized regularly and effectively. While those surfaces are not direct causes of infections themselves, they can transfer organisms that cause infections. Check out this video to see ARAMARK’s approach. In addition, our staff is trained to make sure the patient’s needs are met and that rooms and bathrooms are cleaned effectively at least once a day.
ARAMARK Healthcare EVS employees perform vital tasks each and every day to create efficient, safe, comfortable, and clean environments for patients, visitors, nurses, physicians, and employees, minimizing the risk and spread of infection.
Oh, and If you go and see “Contagion,” try not to panic. It’s only a movie. (But remember to wash your hands when you leave the movie theater).
