In patient areas, work adjustments must occur daily, as the census changes daily. The most popular option is to use the time that becomes available due to census for accomplishing discharge cleaning. In a time when 100 percent census is fading fast, each of the patient-floor assignments should be able to handle some amount of discharge cleaning. We are promoting a priority approach to discharge cleaning, with high census assignments ordinarily receiving help while lower census assignments are giving help. This part of the operation takes considerable time and effort to perfect, but when it is performed correctly, it is most useful.
In other instances, in which the time available due to census exceeds the number of hours needed for discharges, project cleaning can be assigned to all employees that have time available as a result of the census changes on their schedules. For example, if the time availability report shows that only three people have time available and the time available amounts to only five hours, then the manager can assign them approximately five hours of project work that is suitable to their job classifications.
The final point concerns daily patient room cleaning and patient satisfaction. Our position is that too much attention in healthcare is paid to discharge cleaning. The housekeeper on the floor must constantly deal with the stress of turning around the beds on the patient floor. Consequently, if that floor has a high amount of discharges for the day and no help arrives, the daily patient room cleaning can suffer markedly. Managers must carefully ensure that each assignment provides enough time to do a quality job in the daily areas.