The Importance of Hygiene and Equipment in the Hospital Environment
Hospital hygiene is a set of rules necessary to protect and maintain the health of individuals and communities. Hygiene is crucial in public hospitals, which provide services in areas as important as healthcare. To prevent the easy spread of microorganisms and human infections in hospital environments, hygiene regulations and policies are established in accordance with the government’s guidelines.
When discussing cleanliness conditions in the healthcare sector, it is necessary to briefly define some concepts: sanitation, disinfection, and sterilization. While disinfection targets microorganisms harmful to the human body, sterilization destroys all living microorganisms during the process.
By addressing hygiene and compliance with health regulations together, hospitals can ensure healthy conditions in their environments. For this reason, hospitals have a sterile staff to provide appropriate and effective sanitary conditions. The facility also follows specific rules to conduct hygienic processes, subjecting the hospital environment to a quality assurance system that demonstrates the presence of certain hygiene conditions.
Today, sanitary research is focusing on surface disinfection to ensure the continuity of sanitary conditions in hospital environments. To maintain sanitary conditions in a hospital environment, personal hygiene, food hygiene, water hygiene, and building hygiene must all be ensured.
In the healthcare industry, it is necessary to ensure proper cleanliness conditions through sanitation, disinfection, and sterilization. While disinfection targets only microorganisms that are harmful to the human body, sterilization eliminates all living microorganisms.
Hospitals employ trained personnel to ensure appropriate and effective sanitary conditions. They follow specific guidelines for maintaining hygiene and quality assurance systems that demonstrate the presence of certain hygienic conditions in the hospital environment.
Recent research on hygiene focuses on surface disinfection in hospital environments. To maintain continuous sanitary conditions in hospitals, personal hygiene, food hygiene, water hygiene, and building hygiene must be ensured. In hospitals, bed linens, gowns, and other bedding sets from clinics and wards must be washed and ironed in the laundry room before being taken to the appropriate department. The accuracy of sterilization carried out by an indicator must be recorded in the sterilization logbook. Instruments should be cleaned after use and then autoclaved. Cleaning staff and nursing staff should ensure the continuity of cleaning daily. Health checks of kitchen workers should be performed periodically, and workers must wear appropriate protective equipment and follow hygiene protocols. Kitchen storage areas must also be cleaned.
The hospital cleaning process should include immediate cleaning of the entire facility, taking into account both routine and unforeseen situations, especially patient rooms, examination rooms, and common areas. Textile hygiene, such as bed sheets, linens, and curtains, should always be maintained.
Unlike food production areas, hotels, and other public places, hospitals are full of people who may be exposed to microorganisms that could potentially harm them due to open wounds or surgical incisions on surfaces, in the air, or in water. Therefore, various cleaning methods are necessary to ensure hygiene and sterilization in the hospital environment. Careful selection of hygiene equipment to be used in hospitals is also necessary. Choose products specially designed for public use, rather than traditional sanitary equipment. Hospital-specific health and safety products such as emergency eye and body wash stations, eye solutions, foot pedals, retractable towel dispensers, galoshes, touchless boxes, elbow disinfectants, and touchless Batikon dispensers, as well as equipment suitable for mass use, should be preferred. In addition, equipment such as disinfectant hygienic mats and adhesive hygienic sheets should be used to clean in accordance with disinfection principles. Quality tools suitable for medical personnel should also be selected with care.
