FOR MORE THAN 15 years, Westport Linen Services has been working closely with area hospitals and health care facilities as an exclusive laundry for their day-to-day linen needs while supporting infection prevention strategies.

As the largest health care linen provider in the state, Westport Linen currently has two locations, one in Baton Rouge, and one in New Orleans. Westport is continuing its expansion into southwest/central Louisiana. With 220 employees, Westport Linen currently processes over 26 million pounds of laundry each year.

With patient care remaining a hospital’s top priority, in recent years many health care providers are looking to outsourcing their laundry services while increasing efficiency and cost savings.
Westport Linen focuses all of its attention on the health care linen industry and its regulations and guidelines. Ultimately, the organization can help hospitals save money and eliminate the high capital cost of replacing equipment to decrease the overall burden of managing linen.

“Our customer service is industry leading. We focus on driving down the linen and laundry expenses for the customers. This is the net cost to the hospital for their overall cost-per-patient day, which is reduced dramatically,” says Eddie Lefeaux, co-owner of Westport Linen. “We can offer a 30-40% savings to hospitals versus running their own on-premise laundries.”

Also, it remains critical that laundry processes are part of the overall infection prevention strategy. So, Westport Linen delivers the hygienically clean linen to the hospital and directly to where it is needed. 

“Rather than just dock-side service, Westport employs linen distribution technicians who deliver the clean product to the units, then bring the soiled linen out. We follow a strict protocol with procedures to extract the soiled linen out of the hospital on a daily basis, eliminating cross contamination.”

STRICT QUALITY CONTROLS
“We test our linen daily. We also contract with outside labs to test our linen,” says Lefeaux.

The company guides itself by stringent Quality Control Measures, which include Infection Control, a Dalare Report, Chemical Vendor Monthly Service Report, Daily Wash pH Testing and Quality Assurance Audit.

•  The Infection Control Procedure details the Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council approved processes from clean delivery to soil retrieval. This includes the soil sortation, the wash and dry, folding and shipping, as well as the building and equipment requirements.

•  The Dalare Report is performed quarterly by an independent testing facility and details a Sanitary score, Intestinal, Respiratory or Skin and Air group bacteria scores. Also, pH, absorbency and AOAC Bacteriostatic Activity testing is performed to show results of the wash chemistry and sanitizing effectiveness in the process.

•  The Chemical Vendor Monthly Service Report monitors all product wash formulas, equipment issues and resolutions throughout the month. Monthly and daily chemical titrations are performed to ensure that every wash cycle achieved the proper chemicals, temperature, pH levels and dwell time allotted to sanitize the linen.

•  With Daily Wash pH testing, random linen samples are tested throughout the day to determine the final pH of the products before the drying process. If levels exceed bench marks, the product is reprocessed and equipment is titrated instantly.

In the Quality Assurance Audit, performed throughout each day, products are removed from the finishing line and examined. Rejects are graded for stains, tears and holes.

INDUSTRY ACCREDITATION
Westport Linen has been accredited by the HLAC since 2007, and every three years it is recertified under standards based on federal regulations as well as industry best practices.

The HLAC is a nonprofit organization that inspects and accredits laundries that process reusable textiles for health care facilities. The HLAC conducts inspections focused on patient safety and infection prevention.

The accreditation affirms that a laundry organization has successfully passed an inspection of its facility, policies and procedures, training programs, and relationships with its health care customers.

COMBATING INFECTIONS
Westport Linen stays current with all of the latest findings and guidelines to ensure that they are working with the hospitals to help avoid health care-associated infections.

“Not long ago it was discovered that bacteria could be transported by linen,” Lefeaux says. “We give our customers a reliable, high-quality sanitized product.”

Investigations conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Hospitals confirmed that five children died in a New Orleans hospital in 2010 due to fungal infections contracted from their linens and supplier.

“We were brought in to work closely with the hospital’s Infection Prevention Department,” Lefeaux says. “We brought in our products and worked hand-in-hand with them on the handling of clean and soiled linen.”

INCREASING EFFICIENCY WITH LOWER COSTS
Lefeaux says for a hospital to analyze the true cost of running their own laundry versus outsourcing, they have to look at total laundry and linen replacement cost from the finance aspect. These include utilities, chemical, labor, benefits, equipment and maintenance expenses. Many times, hospitals don’t consider the cost of the valuable square footage space required to house the laundry. Operating a truly efficient laundry is very challenging. Most hospitals prefer to focus on their mission of providing exceptional care and allow Westport to provide their linen expertise.
 
SATISFIED CUSTOMERS
Westport customer Opelousas General Health System transitioned from having an in-house laundry when it came time to replace some of their equipment. 

Bob Hardy, Chief Operating Officer of Opelousas General, says that he chose Westport Linen for their “reputation and accreditation” along with “great reviews from current customers.”

“I toured the facility and was very impressed with their operations.”

Hardy also notes that the Westport team took the lead on educating and assisting their staff in the nursing units.

“They have extensive experience with other facilities and were able to introduce best practices to our organization which led to a reduction in the amount of linen being used.”

He adds, “Having a dependable linen service which aids in patient comfort helps us deliver better patient care.”

Lefeaux says, “We learned years ago, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. We measure everything in our company. We measure deliveries, our plant efficiencies, linen utilization and customer satisfaction.”

Driving down its customers’ costs while increasing the hospitals’ patient satisfaction keeps Westport Linen in high demand.  

Westport Linen services |  225.218.8878 | westportlinen.com

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