The Curtain Doctor: Common Problems

1. Regular machine washing of cubicle curtains (which consist of polyurethane mesh, vinyl, a blend of material textile, and brass grommets) does not live up to the commercial laundry standard of infection control. Up until now, the technology simply didn't exist to maintain cubicle curtains properly.

The inability to clean cubicle curtains properly with conventional washers is due to the following:

•	Washing - Mophead washers are not designed to clean cubicle curtains.
•	Sanitizing - Because technology to properly clean cubicle curtains at hospitals did not exist, sanitizing was not a viable option.
•	Drying - The damage in a dryer that causes shrinkage, deterioration, melting and distortion made this process impractical causing cubicle curtains to be re-hung or stored wet or damp.

2. Cubicle curtains are also often contaminated with staph, pneumonia, bloodborne pathogens, infectious body fluids (vomit), spills, etc. and must be handled with strict guidelines.

3. Manpower requirements of taking a paid employee off his regular duty to:

•	Go to the basement and find a ladder
•	Locate a red bag
•	Locate a replacement curtain
•	Go to the room
•	Take down the contaminated curtain/ red bag
•	Re-hang the spare
•	Return to basement to return ladder
•	Go to laundry to drop off red bagged curtain
•	Someone must have placed infected curtain in washer
•	Someone removes curtain from mophead washer
•	Curtain is wet, wrinkled and contaminated

The total cost of the above labor has been estimated at 3 Manhours lost

4. Patient cannot be without cubicle curtain.

5. Record keeping of which cubicle curtains have been cleaned and when is all but impossible.

The combination of the five issues above made it a thankless job and all but impossible for the environmental services team to properly maintain cubicle curtains AND maximize their infection fighting capabilities by cleaning and sanitizing their entire hospitals cubicle curtains in one day.