Few things are worse than having your favorite medical scrubs fall victim to wear and tear long before you are ready to let them go. Unfortunately, properly caring for nursing scrubs is a common challenge. Nursing is a physically, mentally and emotionally damaging career. At the end of a long day, laundry is the last thing that most healthcare professionals want to think about.
The pure white nursing scrubs of years past were relatively easy to wash and sanitize using regular chlorine bleach. But today’s colorful and stylish jogger scrubs for women and other styles can’t withstand being laundered using such harsh chemicals. Bleach destroys colors and prints and can weaken the fabric or cause holes. Knowing how to care for your scrubs properly is essential if you want to keep them clean, sanitary and looking like new for as long as possible. Keep reading to discover a few helpful tips on taking care of your nursing scrubs.
1. Pre-Treat New Scrubs
When you buy yourself some new scrubs, pre-treat them before wearing them to work for the first time. This is especially important for vibrantly colored scrubs because this step helps set the dye and prevent fading.
To pre-treat your new scrubs, launder them in cold water and add half a cup of white vinegar to the load. If you have multiple sets to pre-treat, be sure to separate your light-colored scrubs from darker-colored ones. It’s best to pre-treat prints individually too. Taking the time to properly pre-treat your scrubs now will make them easier to care for in the future.
2. Use Color-Safe Stain Remover
Stains are almost inevitable for nurses. From blood to chemicals, there are all sorts of unpleasant things that can soil your uniforms each day. While properly washing your scrubs will make them clean and sanitary, failure to remove the stain will make them appear unhygienic. Plus, stained scrubs are unprofessional. Before washing your scrubs, be sure to treat spots using a color-safe stain remover. Read the label carefully and follow the instructions to avoid damaging your scrubs. When in doubt, test new products in inconspicuous areas to make sure they don’t cause any damage.
3. Never Wash Your Scrubs with Other Laundry
Washing scrubs isn’t the same as washing your other apparel. In addition to cleaning them, you need to make sure they are disinfected before wearing them again. The extra disinfecting cycle can damage your regular clothing. Plus, heavier items, like jeans and jackets, can damage delicate scrubs in the wash. To protect all of the garments in your wardrobe, always wash your garments separately from your non-work attire.
4. Run Two Wash Cycles
Once you have pre-treated your scrubs for stains, turn them inside out. Then, run them through a regular wash cycle using cold water and regular detergent. Even if you are only washing a few garments, select the largest load size to ensure there is plenty of room for your scrubs to move around.
Remove the garments from the washer and check them for any remaining stains. If there are still spots, pre-treat and wash in cold water again before moving on to the second wash cycle.
After washing your scrubs in cold water and making sure any stains have been removed, wash again using hot water. Add color-safe bleach to your machine’s bleach dispenser. Or, if your washer doesn’t have a dispenser, add it directly to the water while the machine is filling. The use of color-safe bleach disinfects scrubs without damaging them like regular bleach.
5. Dry Using High Heat
Place your scrubs in the dryer and select the highest heat setting. Run for 30 minutes (or longer, if necessary, to dry your scrubs thoroughly). In addition to drying your clothing, this step will kill any bacteria that may still be present on the fabric.
6. Iron
Unless your scrubs specifically say not to iron them, ironing is generally recommended for scrubs. In addition to giving your workwear a crisp, professional appearance, using an iron is an extra step in eliminating lingering bacteria from your scrubs. This is especially beneficial if you have an older dryer or one that just does not get very hot.
There are countless microorganisms in healthcare settings, so it’s extremely important to make sure you sanitize your scrubs between wearings. This is more important now than ever before in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to safety and sanitation, it’s better to be overly cautious than run the risk of wearing unsanitary scrubs.
7. Inspect Your Scrubs and Make Minor Repairs
Before folding or hanging your clean scrubs, look them over for lingering stains, loose threads or signs of damage. Stains may be nearly impossible to remove after washing with hot water and machine drying, but you can try. You may need to retire scrubs that still have particularly stubborn stains after laundering.
Snip away loose threads and repair small holes. Tending to minor problems now means they won’t cause serious wardrobe malfunctions during your next shift. Doing so also helps prevent additional damage to your scrubs, so you can get as much wear out of them as possible.
Conclusion
When it comes to taking care of your nursing scrubs, following the steps above is the best way to keep your workwear looking its best while ensuring that it’s germ-free before your next shift. If your closet is filled with old scrubs that are barely hanging in there, consider upgrading to some higher-end scrubs. While they may cost you a bit more upfront, quality scrubs stand up to repeated laundering better than less expensive ones. Plus, they often have features, like antimicrobial fabric, to help them remain more sanitary.
Whether you’re trying to get the most life out of your old scrubs or hoping to give your new ones the best possible care, the suggestions above will help you meet your goal.
It is no surprise there is often confusion between the concepts of experience and engagement. Tack the word “patient” to the front of either, and you’ll likely become even more confused as to the difference in meaning between the two. The difference, however, becomes significant when we look at the current state of health care. The reality is, participants in the health care industry are dedicating significant resources to enhancing the patient experience.
Equally, investments in technology and labor are being made to
improve engagement with patients, both prospective and current. This shift in
patient engagement has stemmed from an increasing number of patients playing a
more active role in managing their health affairs through digital platforms. While
both patient experience and patient engagement contribute equally
to patient loyalty, there are key differences worth noting.
Patient Experience
Patient experience can be summed up as the cumulative experiences a patient encounters throughout their dealings with a health care provider. This begins with the initial phone call and continues right through administering care to the patient and the routine after-care checkups. A patient’s experience is a journey that is often comprised of:
The initial phone conversation or online booking made to schedule an appointment with the health care provider.
The patient’s visit to the premises, including the interaction between the receptionist staff and the patient upon arrival and departure.
The level of care provided by the health care provider to the patient, and the quality of the health care staff who administered the care.
Whether the patient’s experience was comfortable, this includes the gown they were provided with and the appropriateness of the uniforms worn by the health care provider.
The patient’s billing experience, such as the ease, convenience, and flexibility of payment.
The after-stay experience with the health care provider—for example, did they make a follow-up call to the patient to gauge how they were feeling and whether the provider could have improved on any aspect of care?
In summary, every encounter the health care provider has with the patient contributes to the overall patient experience. Patient experience places the onus of care mostly on the health care provider, meaning the provider is responsible and accountable for the patient’s experience from start to finish. Understanding the touchpoints of this experience is critical to enhancing the overall relationship between the patient and the provider.
Patient Engagement
The Center for Advancing Health defines patient engagement as the “… actions individuals must take to obtain the greatest benefit from the health care services available to them.” Patient engagement puts the onus of health care back on the patient. Patients are afforded an opportunity to enhance their health and well-being through various health care services on offer. However, the patient must act for engagement to take place. This shift in onus from provider to patient is the main differentiating factor between patient experience and patient engagement. Some examples of patient engagement are:
1. Patients and their families engaging in wellness programs, health-based courses, and initiatives provided by health care providers.
2. Patients registering for, updating, and regularly using online health care records. The introduction of online health care records offers significant convenience and control for patients who traditionally would not have documented their health history.
Such
records enable patients to manage their health information,
including advanced care plans or custodian details.
Online health records also allow patients to add personal notes regarding any allergies and allergic reactions they may have previously had and set up text or email notifications to notify the patient that a health care provider has viewed their record.
Patients concerned about security can configure their security settings to restrict access to their records and who can and can’t view their health records online.
3. Provide input into patient engagement surveys or broader initiatives. Surveys on patient engagement have been used previously to gauge the services that can be undertaken by a patient as opposed to health care providers. This, in turn, allows the health care provider to devote resources to segments of the patient experience cycle that require more attention.
Achieving Both Patient
Satisfaction and Engagement – Is It Possible?
Patient experience focuses on the steps taken by the health care provider to enrich a patient’s experience, whereas patient engagement centers on the actions taken by a patient to engage in the services provided by the health care professional. While differences between patient experience and engagement are apparent, the two operate hand in hand when understanding the full gambit of a patient’s interaction with health care providers in the modern-day health care landscape. The question is, can a health care provider serve both sides of the spectrum? Can this utopia of patient interaction be achieved? Essentially, the answer is yes, it can, but only by understanding some fundamental levers. Some of these levers are:
Defining the patient. Is the patient one person or should this comprise the patient’s family, friends, and caregivers? When assessing experience and engagement, should experience be focused on the individual’s experience with the provider or on how a patient and his/her family interact with health and wellness programs?
Defining the degree of control. What control does a patient under the “patient engagement” umbrella have in determining their quality of care and level of engagement? When we speak about engagement, how much choice does the patient have? Conversely, does the patient experience relinquish all control, or can there be some middle ground, where the patient can provide input into the patient experience cycle by, for example, completing surveys?
The degree of engagement. If a health care provider has patients who are highly engaged, completing most tasks themselves, is this the ideal degree of engagement? For example, is having patients schedule appointments themselves, leverage technology to pay for bills, and update their health care records the proper amount of engagement? Some believe so and argue patient engagement allows that other elements of care, such as the actual health care service, should be left to the patient experience cycle.
Final Thoughts
There is undoubtedly an opportunity for health care providers and patients to work within the confines of the patient experience and patient engagement concepts. Advancements in technology, such as online health care records and increased availability of health programs, have created the platform for patient engagement and made it easier for a patient or a patient’s family member/caregiver to manage their health affairs. This has reduced administrative dependency on providers, who can now focus on more pressing facets of the patient experience, such as the level and quality of care provided to patients.
Overall, the outlook appears positive and, in time, health care providers and patients will likely find a comfortable medium between bearing the burden of patient engagement and patient experience.
