Those pesky…Here we go again…

Those pesky…WATCH principles

How soon we forget – or more correctly overlook some of the lessons we learned as newbies. Take the principles of cleaning where we learned that cleaning effectiveness was the result of achieving the ideal balance between its five foundational ingredients of: water, mechanical action, time, chemicals and heat.

We learned that altering one of those five could allow the reduction or increase of one (or more) of the others. But more importantly we understood that it was the ideal balance of them that delivered optimal results and use costs.

But when we’re faced with a cost conscious customer who’s complaining, all too often our first instinct might be to lower the chemical concentration – rather than first looking at the other four components.

Maybe those lower costs, while maintaining great results, could be achieved by reducing freshwater feedback. Or perhaps if we revisited operator training, we could better ensure dish racks or wash wheels that are really full. Those actions could achieve lower costs without risking diminished results – a negative outcome that will only certainly lead to a more serious new complaint.

Next up: More forgotten stuff.

Here we go again…More bad bugs!

Per the Center for Disease Control infections from a new antibiotic resistant bacteria have spiked in many of the country’s health care facilities during the past year. Their data has shown that those occurrences are result of a bacteria called NDM–producing carbapenem-resistant Enterobacter ales (NDM-CRE for ease of description).

And a bit like the SARS problem that we dealt with well before the Corona epidemic, these NDM-CRE microorganisms are proving themselves to be resistant to the most widely used antibiotics, making treatment for infected patients who may already be medically fragile very challenging.

But the good news is that like those other pathogen, these microbes are susceptible to the disinfectants we have in our arsenal. But as was the case with Covid and SARS, the secret sauce lies in using them diligently.

So again it’s time to make certain that our healthcare customers are equipped to deal with this new challenge by using those products to the letter of their label instructions. To insure complete kill, that means using an adequate dilution strength, thorough removal of organic soils, and adhering to the proscribed dwell time.