Our Work to Provide a Clean, Healing Environment

At WakeMed, our commitment to providing the safest, highest quality care is reflected in everything we do. Keeping health care facilities clean is a complex process that involves cleaning, disinfecting and monitoring standard practices. These steps are critical for reducing health care-associated infections and ensuring a clean, healing environment for the patients and families we serve.

The WakeMed Environmental Services team follows Association for Healthcare Environment guidelines and best practices for hospital cleaning. This includes, but is not limited to:

• A robust, system-wide training program to ensure staff use and understand best practices for cleaning and disinfection, preventing cross-contamination, and utilizing required personal protection equipment.
• Specific focus on areas frequently touched by patients and health care workers (often called high-touch surfaces). These surfaces have the greatest risk of pathogen contamination and transmission.
• Random swab testing of high-touch areas in patient rooms, surgical areas and public spaces to ensure areas are effectively cleaned and disinfected.
• Leaders regularly round on patients and families to gather input and suggestions that can be used to enhance cleaning efforts.

Meet Our Autonomous Vacuum

WakeMed’s autonomous — robotic — vacuum helps keep the floors at our WakeMed Raleigh Campus facility clean. Patients and visitors may see this machine cleaning various public areas of our hospital, which frees up our Environmental Services technicians to focus on detail cleaning and disinfection of high-touch areas. This is just one example of how WakeMed continues to expand our resources and leverage technology to keep our patients and families safe. 

A Highly Qualified Team

Many of our Environmental Services technicians have received certification as health care environmental services technicians from the Association of Healthcare Environment. This program provides education and evidence-based training for high-performing health care environmental services professionals.

Additionally, several of the Environmental Services technicians who clean our surgical areas (operating rooms and procedure rooms) have certified surgical cleaning technicians, which involves education and training specific to operating room environments.

Join our Team!

At WakeMed, every member of our team plays a vital part in caring for our community. We could not provide our services without our Environmental Services team members. These individuals help ensure a positive patient experience and are responsible for maintaining cleanliness and infection prevention standards within our facilities.

We are always looking for dedicated and detail-oriented individuals to join our team. Learn more about working at WakeMed and see open positions.