If you’re running a bustling medical practice, your top priority is the health and well-being of your patients and staff. After all, many of the folks who walk in and out of your doors may be immunocompromised or have fewer defenses than the average person. And the responsibility falls on you to keep them safe. Plus, if your staff is exposed to harmful germs, viruses, and bacteria, this could mean absences that affect your medical office’s productivity and profitability. So, why is medical office cleaning so important, and what should you expect from a medical cleaning service? Here are some tips so you can set your practice up for success.

Why Is Medical Office Cleaning So Important?

There are many unique challenges to medical office cleaning. Compliance standards and industry regulations are often much stricter for the healthcare field than any other type of industry. Because your patients may be particularly vulnerable because of their compromised immune systems, you’ll need to be especially mindful of risks that may not affect the general population.

And it’s true that most medical office cleaning companies should have the knowledge and expertise to navigate this specialty industry with the right cleaning techniques, medical-grade (and environmentally safe) products, and tools to get the job done well. But you should also be aware of what kinds of risks are present at your medical office and do your best to oversee cleaning operations with a watchful eye and thorough inspection.

You’ll want to hire a company that utilizes CDC-compliant, medical-grade chemicals to thoroughly clean, sanitize, and disinfect your facility’s surfaces and indoor air. But you’ll also need to ensure that those products are safe for your immunocompromised patients. You’ll want to make sure that no cleaning methods interfere with the quality of your oxygen, the cleanliness of your medical tools, or the integrity of the prescription medications you may be doling out to patients. Additionally, having a cleaning service in place for your medical office can help mitigate risks associated with common colds, bouts of flu, RSV, and even COVID-19. Let’s discuss what you should be looking for in a medical office cleaning service.

Medical Office Cleaning Services: Janitorial

First things first: your medical office needs to be kept clean on a regular basis. This means standard janitorial services must take place, just like in any other type of facility. Regular dusting, mopping, and vacuuming are vital in terms of floor and carpet care. Removal of trash, recycling, and human and medical waste are also vital. Win­dow, wall, and oth­er sur­face cleaning must take place on a regular basis.

The team you hire should be thorough and timely in their service. You should have a schedule in place for all of the janitorial cleaning services, a set staff to execute each task with skill, and an appropriate schedule of inspecting and quality assurance to make sure the job is getting done well. Something as simple as proper disposal of needles is a baseline requirement for the service and the cleaning team you employ.

The Budd Group serves many medical offices and healthcare facilities. We oper­ate under the prin­ci­ples of the ISSA Clean­ing Indus­try Man­age­ment Stan­dard (CIMS) to deliv­er a more pur­pose­ful, cus­tomer-focused exe­cu­tion of our clean­ing ser­vices. We also offer com­pre­hen­sive green clean­ing solu­tions under the guide­lines of the U.S. Green Build­ing Coun­cil (USG­BC). By using state-of-the-art tech­nol­o­gy and opti­miz­ing our busi­ness process­es, we are able to offer our cus­tomers top-notch service that’s thorough enough to meet or exceed industry standards. And we use EPA-approved chemical cleaning solutions to keep your patients, staff, and environment safe.

Medical Office Cleaning Services: Disinfection

Beyond daily or hourly janitorial services that you might find in other types of facilities like retail centers, office buildings, or schools, there are some specialty services surrounding thorough disinfection that are absolutely necessary for your medical office. Again, the presence of harmful germs or bacteria can lead to patients and staff getting sick—so you’ll want to be mindful of proper disinfection in your facility.

Disinfection services could include things like wait­ing room and patient room dis­in­fect­ing and cleaning, sur­gi­cal room sterilizing, high-touch area disinfecting, misting and electrostatic spray disinfection, antimi­cro­bial bar­ri­er application, and even air quality monitoring and control. Busi­ness­es like your medical office can greatly ben­e­fit from hav­ing a team of pro­fes­sion­al tech­ni­cians on site, using proven dis­in­fec­tant clean­ing ser­vices and industry-leading technology to dis­in­fect touch­points and keep peo­ple safe.

The Budd Group offers remediation, disinfecting, and cleaning for areas that have been exposed to harmful contaminants—including mold and mildew, viruses and bacteria, and medical or human waste. We also offer air purification services to keep your indoor air quality (IAQ) at a healthy level through our BreatheWell Air Purifi­ca­tion Pro­gram. Puri­fy­ing the air in the inte­ri­or of space means you must iden­ti­fy the air par­ti­cle sources in the occu­pants’ breath­ing zone and mit­i­gate car­bon emis­sions (CO2), VOCs (volatile organ­ic com­pounds), and par­tic­u­lates (PM pathogens) from the air so that the imme­di­ate air is at its clean­est. Otherwise, these air pol­lu­tants can attach them­selves to oth­er air par­tic­u­lates and stay sus­pend­ed for extend­ed peri­ods—potentially causing respiratory conditions and other health issues for your medical office’s occupants.

Medical Office Cleaning Services: Maintenance

When it comes to cleaning medical offices, it’s not just about custodial or disinfection services—it’s also about the proper maintenance of your facility’s assets and operations. These can include everyday things like maintaining plumbing, lighting, and HVAC systems. Broken assets or systems will need to be regularly monitored and inspected and parts replaced as necessary.

Think of the maintenance part of these services as everything that goes into keeping your building functioning seamlessly. Things like dry­wall repairs, paint­ing, wallpapering, bath­room restoration, lock­smith services, maintenance of your security systems, tile, flooring, and car­pet repair and installation, water or fire dam­age restoration, and other services might be included under the “maintenance” umbrella.

At the end of the day, you want your patients and staff to arrive at a well-kept medical office facility. You want your front office and waiting room areas to be welcoming environments. You want your bathrooms and kitchens to be running optimally. And you want your entire building to be comfortable and appropriately maintained for the well-being and safety of every occupant in your building.

Medical Office Cleaning Services: Landscaping

If you’re running a medical office, you likely know that it’s not just the inside of your building that matters to your patients—it’s the outside too. Is your facility inviting and professionally kept? Or is your outdoor area lacking in aesthetically pleasing elements that boost your curb appeal?

A facility’s maintenance team may be able to help give a facelift to your landscaping. At The Budd Group, these types of services may include land­scape plan­ning and installations, upkeep of your facility’s grounds, water resource and irri­ga­tion instal­la­tion and management, fer­til­iza­tion and pest control, mulch installation, soil test­ing and turf management, storm debris removal, snow and ice removal services, and much more.

Keep your building inviting to the public—and to potential new patients—by maintaining the outside of your facility just as well as you maintain the inside. When searching for “medical office cleaning services near me,” take note of whether the facility management companies you’re considering for the job also offer these types of landscaping services.

Partner With The Budd Group to Ensure Your Medical Office Is Safe and Clean for All

The bottom line is this: if your patients or staff are exposed to harmful contaminants at your facility, their health and well-being could be at serious risk. If they are met with an unkempt environment at your medical office, they may not decide to choose you as their medical provider, or they may not revisit after their first encounter with your office. Staff absences due to illness (that may be preventable) can seriously impact your medical office’s productivity and profitability—as well as give your administrators the headache of rescheduling and finding replacements. Be as proactive as possible by partnering with a knowledgeable medical office cleaning service to help keep your facility safe and appealing.

If you’re ready to take the next steps and hire a facilities management company to oversee all these various needs for your medical office, the team of subject matter experts at The Budd Group can help. We offer a full suite of facilities management solutions—from indoor janitorial and disinfection services to outdoor landscaping. We can help you with the maintenance of your building and its assets, keeping your systems running like a well-oiled machine and decreasing downtime.

The Budd Group is a family-owned and operated company that has provided exceptional services and solutions to facility managers across the Southeast United States for over 60 years. With more than 4,000 highly trained service associates, we can provide virtually any service required within a facility and are adept at integrating our services to create cost-effective solutions for our customers. And under our “Make It Right Guarantee,” we promise to meet or exceed your expectations in the delivery of high-quality facility support solutions. If we do not deliver the contracted services to your satisfaction, we will Make It Right—that’s our vow to you. Contact one of our friendly representatives today to discuss your medical office’s needs and how The Budd Group can help!