Cleanliness and very good cleaning practices are important in any public place but in places like hospitals, clinics, and any similar places that involve any type of care for the public, they are more than critical due to the obvious fact that germs and bacteria, and their spread, can lead to harming people who are already ill or that have a compromised immune system. Although being compromised already before entering the hospital is worse, one does not even need to be sick in order to get ill from something that you might catch in a hospital. Therefore, cleaning standards have to be at their absolute best.
Medical institutions have very strict government guidelines and regulations in order to make sure that proper cleaning is undergone. The regulations are very stiff and they state that everything on the premises has to be kept and maintained to cleaning standards prescribed specifically for cleaning institutions. In other words, the highest possible standards of cleaning and disinfecting.
An area of the hospital that has always seen its fair share of controversy is the floor. Throughout the ages, many different floor cleaning methods have been tried in the hope of stopping the spread of germs and disease-causing bacteria. The most common method that was widely adopted was the typical cotton loop mop. But, as time went by and testing became more advanced, hospitals soon discovered that these types of mops were in fact the cause of many germ outbreaks in the hospital.
They found that the cotton mops were actually spreading germs around the entire hospital. It was at this point when hospitals started trying different methods to clean their floors and thats when they discovered their solution to their problem. The solution was a microfiber mop. But not just any microfiber mop, it had to be a flat mop and not the loop mop style microfiber mop.
Their studies showed that the microfiber mop, like this one from amazon.com, was actually removing germs off the floor. The microfiber mop pads were then cleaned in a washing machine to sterilize them which was killing the germs and therefore preventing any further spread. Since then, microfiber mops quickly became the standard for floor cleaning in hospitals all over the world. If hospitals use these types of mops then that is saying quite a lot. If you are still using a cotton mop to clean your floor then hopefully now you see that it is an outdated and inefficient method.