Sophia Daukus, Healthcare Facilities Today
While hospitals maintain strict protocols for minimizing infections and the spread of microbes, facility managers may be overlooking a prime area of concern.

Facility Executive
A recent study conducted by Veritiv’s Facility Solutions segment found that 87.8% of employees believe that the cleanliness of their work environment directly reflects the feeling of being cared for by their employers.

Henry Powderly, Healthcare Finance News
CMS released ratings on close to 4,000 Medicare-eligible hospitals, and the vast majority scored either three of four stars.

Infection Control Today
TRSA, a leading global textile services trade association, announces it has updated its Hygienically Clean Healthcare Certification standard to address care and use of exchange carts, a long-time industry practice for the safe delivery and storage of clean linens between commercial laundries and healthcare facilities.

CleanLink
Workers in a variety of industries, from professional cleaning to construction, should wear protective hand gear (gloves) when performing their duties.

Shannon Barnet, Becker's Infection Control & Clinical Quality
The CDC's recommendations to clean high-touch areas more frequently than minimal-touch surfaces do not include surfaces in the operating room, so researchers conducted a study to identify high-touch areas in the OR and their level of contamination.

Safety+Health
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched a campaign intended to improve hand hygiene in the health care industry.

Infection Control Today
In a myriad of workplace settings, standard processes are key to a successful operation, ensuring efficiency and safety. For these processes to work, employees must comply.

Infection Control Today
The announcement in April that the World Health Organization (WHO) had begun the process of electing its next director-general could mark renewed effort to strengthen the enforcement of the International Health Regulations (IHR).

Infection Control Today
According to this week’s FluView report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), flu activity continues to decrease in the United States.

Joseph Folkman, Forbes
A short time ago I was doing a workshop in New Jersey. One of the participants asked me an interesting question before the workshop began. "Is there any relationship between the effectiveness of a leader and the number of direct reports they manage?"

Jelena Zikic, Harvard Business Review
Over the last 10 or 15 years those of us who work for organizations have gotten more and more comfortable talking about work-life balance as a business issue; about making the workplace more human, authentic, and compassionate; and about discussing work as something that deserves passion, meaning, even love.

Plan your education for 2016. Visit AHE’s brand-new 2016 ENGAGE site to learn more about educational courses, podcasts, webinars, and events.

AHE is gathering input from environmental services departments across the country to identify baseline staffing productivity standards. The results of this data gathering will be used in building staffing models and providing metrics for environmental services directors. You can be a key player in identifying and establishing these important staffing criteria for our industry.

Release Date: Tuesday May 24, 2016 at 1:00 PM CST (LIVE Webinar)
Cost: Complimentary for Members; Non-members $59.00
During this webinar, participants will be exposed to the core elements of hand hygiene best practices for both the healthcare provider and support team as well as strategies to engage patients in the hand hygiene program.
Speaker: Dr. Hudson Garrett Jr., PhD, MSN, MPH, FNP, CSRN, PLNC, VA-BC, Industry Liaison, Board of Directors, Association for the Healthcare Environment

EXCHANGE 2016 will be held on September 25-28, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, PA. This year, EXCHANGE attendees can look forward to:
• Preconference Workshop
• CHEST Preconference Workshop
• CMIP Preconference Workshop
• Micro Sessions
• Extended Sessions
• Healthcare Marketplace

If interested in contributing to EXPLORE by authoring a best-practices article, email Russell Underwood, EXPLORE editor, for more information. The magazine covers all aspects relevant to health care environmental services professionals.

Sponsored by SCA
The award recognizes and celebrates best practices in cleaning and caring for the environment. It was designed to highlight the outstanding achievements of a leading-edge environmental services team in maintaining high levels of performance in cleaning, disinfecting, infection prevention, environmental sustainability and stewardship, use of technology, patient satisfaction, education, and training in critical areas.
Applications Due June 17, 2016.

Joe Tye, EXPLORE magazine

Brenda Marks, BN, MBA, Explore magazine