Blankets

[Bieber]

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for ideas on blankets. Currently we supply a couple of wool blankets that are reused (washed sporadically) as well as a number of bath blankets that we trade out with the hospitals supposedly on a one-for-one basis (the reality is we're probably losing blankets). Well it sounds like the bath blankets are going away, and I'm trying to find alternatives.

I've only really found one disposable insulated blanket (http://www.buyemp.com/product/insulated-disposable-blanket) online, and at $100 for 18 of them, that's gonna add up quickly (conservatively... VERY conservatively), if we as a service only use 18/day that's $37,595 a year...

So I'm looking for some ideas. How does your service stock blankets? Do you use reusable ones that you trade out with the hospitals? Disposable ones? If disposable, which ones? Does anyone use a linen service to wash your own blankets separately from the hospitals? Anybody do the washing in house?

Thanks.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Bieber

[paramedicmike]

Every place I've ever worked has swapped out bath blankets at the hospital.

Is the hospital making noise about cutting off access?

[Bieber]

Every place I've ever worked has swapped out bath blankets at the hospital.

Is the hospital making noise about cutting off access?

Pretty much, yeah.

[medicgirl05]

We have disposable blankets that are horrible. They don't do their job at all. I still use them from the hospitals unless for some reason I don't have access.

If you decide to go with disposable be leery of what you buy.

[scubanurse]

We would swap and every service I have known swapped. Tell the hospital to start expecting more hypothermic patients come winter... That's crazy they're making noise about it... that's the last place to start thinking about cutting budget I would think?

[island emt]

We have all our linens supplied through the hospitals.

Bath blankets. thermal winter blankets, stretcher sheets, towels, washcloths.

They all belong to a linen service that has the proper equipment to safely clean & disinfect them meeting osha standards.

A while back the hospitals talked about not providing this service, but in the end they understood the need for safe handling of possible blood borne pathogens and potentially infectious materials in the linens. Think superbugs like MRSA

We bring them their source of revenue on their linens and swap out as needed. Stretchers get disinfected & remade for every pt.

Now if you are a service hauling nursing home pt's about town or renal wrangling then you are not providing revenue to the hospitals, so the bean counters may use that as a reason to not supply the linens.

When I worked in NH we did our own laundry and on a dept of labor inspection we got hauled through the wringer for not following proper standards for storing & handling soiled linens.Found out it was cheaper to hire the service out through the hospital laundry service.

We looked into disposables and they were junk. think the paper sheet on a roll at the Dr's office.

You should get rid of the wool blankets also unless they are being properly cleaned & disinfected for every patient.

spreading MRSA and other nasties is not a good thing for your service.

[Bieber]

I was going to look into having a culture done of some of our equipment and ambulances (including the wool blankets), and we do also stock some of the disposable sheets (I agree, complete crap). Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much in the way of insulated disposable blankets for a reasonable price. I'm going to ask again about the exact situation with the hospitals, and ask about contracting a linen service ourselves.

Island, can you tell me more about your time in NH doing your own laundry service? Do you recall how much it was to hire a linen service?

Scuba, on the bright side that would make our hypothermia protocol easier to enact. =)

Thanks everyone.

[island emt]

It's been almost twenty years young Jedi:

But we had a washer & dryer at our base and every night one of the chores was to do all the linens used that day by our five trucks. We were doing 911 service VA long distance transports and running EMS operations for a large motorsports venue, so the laundry could take several hours to get done if you weren't out running calls. We got dinged for not having hot enough water temps to safely kill bacteria and viruses. They then got a whole system of chemical dispensers to meet the requirements and put in a hot water booster for the washer.

It sucked because when the overnight crews got some downtime they were doing laundry. If the night crews got busy then we could run short and end up" borrowing "some from the VA or wherever we ended up transporting to.

I don't know how much the commercial laundry charged , but it was the same service used by the trauma center we transported to. They gave us X amount of linens and we turned them in a big laundry bag and got them back a couple days later cleaned and sanitized.

A few years ago some College students did a study where they went around the southern part of the state and swabbed around 50 different ambulances and equipment and grew out the results in petri dishes as a class project. It turned into quite a science project.

The number 1 filthiest place was the steering wheel and the cot and reusable blankets where a close second for growing out various cultured bacteria. This was back when MRSA & C-diff started to become more prevalent. Cross contamination from one patient to another s a very bad thing.

Do you have an active infection control officer or supervisor?

They could be enlisted to come up with best practices studies from hospitals & nursing home facilities in preventing this.

Just a few things to think about young Jedi Knight.

[WolfmanHarris]

We have a contract with the same linen service the hospital uses to provide linen carts at the Hospital and a few key stations. While theoretically we have our own linen cart within the ED's they'll grab from ours and vice versa. The hospital doesn't get too prickly since we have paid for our own linen.

[Chief1C]

Well, if you're looking to protect someone from the elements, then the disposable blankets are the way to go. If you're looking to keep them warm, then you'll probably need to cover them with a dozen or more. Most "Emergency Blankets" are solely for visibility and protecting one from rain, snow or wind. We swap out the current blankets at ER's, and carry about double what is required. Then we have heavier blankets for different purposes, like woolen, fire retardant ones to cover ppl when we're cutting them free of a wreck. We also carry numerous polar fleece blankets in kits I assembled and dub "Hypothermia Packs". These, we never see again. If getting more is an issue, and you have the call volume, you may just want to consider using a linen service for blankets; and using disposable stretcher sheets for cot to bed transfers.

Edited May 1, 2013 by Chief1C