May 2013
| Business World Magazine | 241
Franklin D. Roosevelt once said that competition is only useful up to a certain
point, but then no further. “Cooperation...” he said, “is the thing we must strive
for today.” In the evolving of business practices, cooperation and collaboration
often imparts means to achieve increased efficiency, cost reduction and ability
to mitigate challenges that would otherwise diminish operational capacity.This
has been validated in Virginia where hospitals, clinics and other patient-service
providers have benefited from a collaborative approach which has led to the
development of a dynamic laundry service that not only serves as a model of
the highest quality standards in the industry, but also as something of a proving
grounds for the fabrics of the future.
Anyone who thinks laundry services are simply about washing, drying
and folding – think again. Laundries today not only rely on some of the
most sophisticated technology and innovatively engineered mechanical
systems, but are also working with new advancements in the manufactur-
ing of textiles. And if it’s a laundry that specializes in service to health-
care systems, that work is conducted with very specific rules governing the
sorting, the cleaning, safety of workers and adherence to dictates that ulti-
mately serve to safeguard the health of patients and hospital staff. After all,
over the course of a day, the bed linens, the cloths, the uniforms associated
with healthcare services are exposed to any manner of bioburden in the
form of blood, body fluids, chemicals and bacterial microorganisms for
which most of us don’t particularly wish to mentally dwell. Such consid-
