Interclean Newsletter Issue 7

WELCOME

We can’t wait to show you some of the new innovations we have come up with and for this reason we are jumping in head first to what we believe will be our best and busiest year yet.

We have just finished hosting our What’s Next In Cleaning seminars across Australia where we had the pleasure of spending time with some of our old friends and plenty of new ones too. It was our honour to showcase some of Interclean’s newest products and endeavours with you, whilst discussing your highest cleaning needs.

We then launched straight into our Healthcare Cleaning Contractors and End Users Conference where we spent two full days in the company of some of Australia’s best distributors and healthcare professionals exploring what we can do to improve the standard of cleaning within our facilities, as well as improving the standards of safety and training at an operational level.

ISSUE

INTERCLEAN NEWS

7

As always we’ve been committed to listening to your feedback and improving our current product range and so we are excited to announce the launch of our new Scrubby which is twice the size to make cleaning bathrooms easier for your cleaners.

On top of all this we had the pleasure of spending time recently with Liz from Blue Cross to see how the Interclean system was working in her facility and find out what her primary challenges are as a Hospitality Manager.

Bill Bassett

Managing Director of Interclean

MY BEST PRACTISE INTERVIEW Page 6

APP UPDATE CONFERENCE Page 5 HIGHLIGHTS Pages 2-3

Photo By Inclean

WHAT’S NEXT IN HEALTHCARE CLEANING SEMINARS Our What’s Next In Cleaning Seminars have been a huge success beyond what we could have imagined. Over 2 weeks in March, The Interclean team visited Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Wollongong with the purpose of introducing you to some of our newest initiatives and products as well as getting to know our customers even better.

Photo By Inclean

“You don’t need help with products, You need help implementing them and bringing about quality change at the operational level.”

Bill Bassett

These jam packed seminars included talks by Internationally Renowned Training Expert Peter Hennig whose experience in European hospitals, and in particular German ones helped enlighten our end users and distributors as to what new practices are being employed overseas and how we can start to implement them here.

Attendees also saw a preview of Interclean’s New TouchPoint Auditor and helped us to improve it further by adding the option for a safety audit and many other features.

If you weren’t able to make it to any of our seminars be sure to check out our highlights video along with our new product teasers by googling Interclean Vimeo and checking out our page.

Photo By Inclean

2

HEALTHCARE CLEANING MANAGERS & CONTRACTORS CONFERENCE

Not shortly after our What’s Next In Cleaning Seminars we pioneered our Inaugural ‘Healthcare Cleaning Contractors and End Users Conference’ where healthcare professionals from all over Australia came together to discuss the future of the cleaning industry.

Thomas Winninger challenged us to think about why we are in this business, who are you doing this for and what is their highest need. Healthcare cleaning managers discussed these points together and came up with clearer understanding that our residents and patients are our customers and their highest need is safety, followed by the need for an environment condusive to health and recovery.

Interclean’s Key International Suppliers in attendance included Doug Brown from Fresh Products, Hydross Jassem from Oxy-Gen Powered and Steve Hipp from Athea Laboratories who all had a great time sharing their knowledge and chatting with attendees.

‘It’s the people in the room who will make this conference brilliant for you, bring out the best in each other. We want competition and we want opposition, we want everyone else to do better, because if everyone else does better it’s going to be easier for us to do better’, Bill emphasised as the conference commenced. The two days acted as a priceless networking opportunity, both for end users, distributors and suppliers alike, and led to many fantastic ideas and questions raised.

that when it comes to the cleaning industry, there is such a clear need for growth and development; particularly when it comes to training at the operational level, setting and measuring standards, reporting, auditing and safe work practices.

For all those who came, a BIG THANK YOU from everyone at Interclean. We look forward to working with you to continue to make your cleaning management easier, safer, faster, cleaner, more productive and greener.

“I love what Bill is doing with Interclean and the concept of pioneering and working with other people who are also trying to change and influence and make things better in cleaning.

That’s what I want to be apart of.” - Bridget Gardner (Fresh, Green, Clean) “Everything that I thought it would be or hoped it would be it has been. The interaction, the communication, the ideas, and just the whole experience has been wonderful “- Chris Dedicoat (ISS World)

As those in attendance listened to a wealth of various speakers, panels, suppliers and industry professionals it became apparent

3

NEW PRODUCTS Cleaning of our washroom surfaces, particularly showers can be hard work with seemingly little results. Nano. etc have developed ultra-thin invisible nano coatings that create hydrophobic (water repelling) surfaces reducing adhesion of dirt and germs resulting in easy-to-clean washrooms.

MS-250 MINERAL STAIN REMOVER • Glass restoration cleaner for professionals .

• Removes hard water stains and other glass contaminants.

MP-250 METAL RESTORE & PROTECT • Metal & fibreglass cleaner & protection, creates easy to clean dirt & water repellent surface.

SP-250 GLASS SURFACE PREPARATION • Glass cleaner and bonding activator with colloidal and sub-micron abrasives for nano etc glass & ceramic coatings.

FP-4000 FABRIC PROTECTOR • Protects fabric and textiles from water carrying contaminants.

Makes the surfaces in your facility easy-to-clean and easier to keep clean in the future.

4

HP 1000 NANO GLASS COATING • Nanotechnology “easy to clean” coating for bathroom surfaces like glass, tiles and sanitary ceramic fixtures.

TECHNOLOGY The key to creating the easiest, safest, fastest, cleanest and most productive Cleaning System will be through a fast and efficient set up paperless auditing and retraining program. Your Interclean Consultant will setup your individual audit questions and your staff will be able to perform audits and view cleaning instructions from a mobile hand held device.

Touch Point Auditor NOW AVAILABLE Fast and Easy To Use

Paperless Audit Process

APP NO AVAIL W ABLE

Your Pdf Audit Report Can Be Viewed on Screen or Emailed

5

MY BEST PRACTISE the community still envision aged care homes to be rather than what they are now.

What would the ideal cleaning system be?

The ideal would be to have the same cleaning system across all residences (in-house and contractor).

What are the main challenges you currently face in your cleaning management?

It would be high expectations from our residents and their families in conjunction with staff recruitment challenges.

BLUE CROSS INTERVIEW Chelsea Manor is one of 24 residences which form the BlueCross Community & Aged Care Group in Melbourne.

Hospitality services which include cleaning, catering and laundry at BlueCross are managed by Liz Goldsmith who joined the group in 2007 in the role of Hospitality Manager.

Liz spent a day with Bill Bassett and key staff from Interclean discussing how the full Interclean system was working and how it had been implemented at BlueCross.

Liz introduced the Interclean cleaning system in conjunction with Wayne Dixon from Barwon Cleaning Supplies in mid 2008. All current in house staff cleaned residences use the Interclean system.

6

What are the main goals of your residence?

That we provide a wonderful clean and caring environment for our residents. Of course the other must have is legislative compliance.

What part does cleaning play in these goals?

The standard of cleanliness helps to market BlueCross and creates a lasting first impression. On an ongoing basis our residents, their families, visitors and our staff love a clean environment.

We all do whether it is in the workplace or in our own homes. Many first time visitors to our residences are surprised that they don’t smell. This perception relates to how people in

How did you find implementing the new system?

It was quite difficult as it was a completely new system, no-one had ever seen anything like it within the aged care sector and we were still getting our heads around effective cleaning schedules, policies and procedures that were user friendly.

MY BEST PRACTISE What different accreditation results do you get from your in-house cleaning in comparison to your out-house cleaning?

We still get compliance, but when I think back to 2008/2009 the aged care accreditation assessors were blown away by our system as most hadn’t seen it before. The Interclean system is being used more widely now within the aged care industry.

In 2008 we decided to write our policy procedures which took weeks; going through all the residences picking out doors, windows, bathrooms, alphabetising everything and then documenting on how they should be cleaned. We standardised chemicals, chemical suppliers, cleaning systems and introduced sign off sheets. These sheets told staff how to clean, when to clean and to sign that they had cleaned.

How has this helped your staff?

It’s helped our staff because the instructions are clear and they know what they’re doing. Especially when we have agency or new staff.

Also, with the flat mop system we find that we don’t have as many gastro outbreaks.

If we do the actual gastro outbreak doesn’t last long as it did with the traditional mop/cleaning cloth and bucket system. On average the length of outbreak was reduced by 2 weeks.

What are your thoughts/ experiences with flat mops and the traditional mop and bucket system?

BlueCross policies and procedures specify that flat mops are changed after every bathroom, room and toilet. Our policy is very clear about using a clean flat mop/cloth for each cleaning task which eliminates cross contamination.

With a mops/cloths and bucket system it is impossible to change the water for every task. Historically buckets were changed every 6-7 rooms, but there’s no way of checking that staff are actually changing the water and

cleaning equipment. You can’t clean with dirty water.

The other positive we found with implementing the Interclean system was a lot of the residences have lifts, and we didn’t have the issue of buckets being tipped out and spilled in the lifts and down the lift wells. For example: When you have one cleaners room on the ground floor and 2 other levels without cleaner’s rooms, the water in the buckets is not going to be changed as often as it should. The Interclean system was very effective in reducing waste time as staff prepared their trolleys at the beginning of their shift and didn’t have to return back to the cleaner’s room until end of shift. More time was put back into actual cleaning.

So what was your number one motivation for changing the system?

Reducing and preventing injuries to staff, and a huge focus on infection control as well as the safety of the residents. With a normal bucket system you get a lot of water on the floor and it takes a long time to dry which is hazardous to staff, residents and visitors. Money was not the main motivator at the time. It was more about a better end result.

Have you ever had problems with odour control?

By putting infection control and work health safety as number one, its forced us to get rid of the bucket because there is a risk to staff, residents and infection, and as a result the whole residence is cleaner and generally odourless. Our lack of odours is a result of the whole Interclean system and also products like Viva!E. We placed Viva!E dispensers in public toilets, pan rooms, dirty linen areas and hallways, where odours are caused so that bad smells aren’t a problem for us.

This compliments the rest of the residence.

You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression and usually in an aged care residence the first impression is odour. If you fail the smell test, you are pushing it up hill from there, everything seems cleaner if you don’t have odours.

What feedback have you received from residents and visitors?

When we first put the system in place everyone was very impressed with the ‘high tech cleaning system’ we had.

People do comment on it, and it does make a difference. Many have enquired about purchasing the system for their own homes.

At the moment in relation to cleaning, what is your biggest need?

Fabulous, highly motivated people. It’s very difficult to find people that care, which you can trust to do their job, and that show up. If we can find them, we have sufficient training to teach them our systems. Aged care is not seen as a glamorous or exciting industry so it can be quite challenging to recruit the right people. Aged care is not for everyone.

“you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression” 7

BOOK NOW FOR THE NEXT

C.H.I.P. COURSE

C.H.I.P. CLEANING COURSE Learn how to create a Best Practice Cleaning System for your facility C.H.I.P. Healthcare Cleaning Managers Course Interclean Training Centre

$695 INC.GST

**LIMITED SEATS AVAILABLE**

Wednesday Nov 18th Register online at www.interclean.com.au/registration/

Call Interclean for more information or email | jan@interclean.com.au