Business View - November 2015 149
HEALTHCARE
HLS is ISO 9001 registered and has been accredited by
the Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council (HLAC).
“We’re the only one in Ontario, and only one of a couple in
Canada that has that accreditation,” says Romeo, proudly.
(The Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council is a non-
profit organization formed for the purpose of inspecting
and accrediting laundries processing healthcare textiles
for hospitals, nursing homes, and other healthcare facili-
ties.)Romeo explains how HLAC operates: “They look at
your processes in terms of best practices and standards
for the laundry industry. It covers the gamut of processes
from infection control to cleaning to transportation. So it’s
a very dynamic standard to ensure that ultimately the cus-
tomer is getting hygienically-clean linen.”
HLAC accreditation is only awarded to those laundries
with the highest standards for patient safety and infection
prevention. “It helps us in several ways,” states Romeo.
“Number one, it’s voluntary, which means that we’re very
proud of our company and the standards and processes
that we have here. The accreditation validates our pro-
cesses and our standards so our customers have assur-
ance that the linen they’re getting from us is hygienically
clean, which impacts patient safety. And at the end of the
day, it always goes back to the patient and I think that’s a
really important point.”
In addition to supplying its healthcare customers with the
cleanest and safest linens available, HLS also offers sig-
nificant cost savings to its many client hospitals, nursing
homes, and acute care facilities. “The whole point of a co-
op facility is it’s another area of savings. You’re central-
izing and you’re standardizing your product mix, so that
a bath towel that’s used today at one hospital might be
used the next day at another hospital. There are efficien-
cies to be gained from that.” In addition, the fact that HLS
