hospital laundered scrubs vs. personal scrubs in Sterile processing

[Jean Dulany, RN, CRCST]

Our new Sterile Processing Management would like feedback from other Sterile Processing staff regarding the necessity of hospital laundered scrubs versus wearing of personal scrubs in the Sterile Processing area of our department. What do you think?

[Harvey Johnson]

Our hospital issues laundered scrubs as they want to maintain control and consistancy over when and how the cleaning process is achieved.
I have heard a few unsettling stories about home laundered scrubs and people's differing opinions about when scrubs are dirty and how they are processed.
Many reasons not to, but a big issue would be controlling the lint remaining on home processed scrubs.
Uniform scrubs also lend an air of professionalism to a department, after all one person's idea of cute patterened scrubs are another person's PJ clown costume.
Just an opinion, your mileage may vary.....

[Uprooted Scrub]

Jean:

It is my department's policy to allow home laundered scrubs. All of the staff members here are very vigilent about wearing the proper PPE in decontam and also clearly understand the 'freshly laundered' phrase in the policy. Believe it or not, I've found more lint on the hospital laundered scrubs that I wear (I hate doing laundry!!) than on any of the staff members' scrubs.

I personally feel that permitting my staff members to wear their own scrubs (as long as they buy into the policy) allows them to express themselves at work and that they're individuals and not just another blue colored cog in the machine. I further feel that this enhances their performance - as a 'blue colored cog in the machine' it's easy to just meet the standard, but as 'Blaine wearing those cool tiger striped scrubs' - as an individual, Blaine wants to do the best job he possibly can.

Just my opinion.

Blaine

P.S. DISCLAIMER: I do NOT now nor have I ever owned cool tiger striped scrubs <grin>.