Never Assume The Answers To These Three Questions When Hiring Medical Cleaning Crews

Posted on: 8 June 2022

If you run a medical office, you know that keeping it clean is not only the safe thing to do, but it's the legal thing to do. You need to ensure that office is cleaned daily, and for smaller clinics that don't have the money to hire their own janitorial staff, contracting out with a cleaning company is often the best move. However, you don't want to assume the cleaning crew will clean just the way you like; always ask them about certain issues, including the following three.

Are the Cleaners Employees or Subcontractors?

It's common for some cleaning companies to use subcontractors as cleaners instead of hiring their own staff. This can affect who is liable for what if something goes wrong (something breaks, there's an accident with a sharps-disposal box, etc.). Employees of a company may also be more available than contractors since those contractors may work with a few companies to ensure they always have work. That can affect who is available to clean your office.

What COVID Protocols Are They Still Following?

As the COVID-19 pandemic changes—less monitoring yet rising infection numbers, for example—what safety protocols does the cleaning company follow now? Are their workers masking when inside buildings (and wearing masks correctly)? Are they using disinfectants that will kill COVID-19? Or is the company run and staffed by people who don't think COVID is a problem now? This is something where you really need to find a cleaning crew who has the same concerns as you, especially if you are still being very cautious about COVID. And even if you're not being cautious, really, you want a cleaning crew that is. That shows that they take the cleaning job seriously.

How Do They Respond to Emerging Threats?

The COVID-19 pandemic showed how quickly advice for cleaning and disinfecting can change in the face of an emerging threat. Thus, a very good question to ask is how the cleaning company responds now when a new health threat shows up. For example, in mid-2022, monkeypox became a concern. Even though the spread was slower than it was with COVID, the virus appeared in several different states. How did the crew you're interviewing respond to this new concern? Did they review how the virus could be killed and decide their cleaning methods already cover the monkeypox virus? Or did they simply wait to see how the CDC advised people to react? You'll want to know what to expect should another illness become a problem.

Medical offices need to be cleaned well and cleaned daily. Any crew you hire to handle the cleaning needs to work to your specifications. Never assume that they do; always double-check so you're sure you and the cleaning company are on the same path.

For additional information, contact a medical office cleaning service in your area. 

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