For a July 10th article in the Lawrence Journal-World about how team and cooperative summer cleaning methods are successfully helping USD 497 respond to 20% cuts in staffing, please click here.

PUR-O-ZONE has been helping school districts throughout the region respond to sudden and dramatic cuts in personnel with offsetting increases in productivity. Summer Cooperative Cleaning and Team Cleaning concepts provide ways to reorganize cleaning staff efforts into a more productive and beneficial structure. The article link above describes the success in Lawrence, which early on got a boost from visiting the very successful programs in the Hutchinson Public School System, also supported by efforts from PUR-O-ZONE.

These programs are part of PUR-O-ZONE's focus on working with the 95% of the annual cleaning budget that goes into people resources. School systems, hospitals, assisted-living centers, and factories have worked hand-in-hand to tailor new approaches to workloading, beginning with access to CCAP, the huge database of information about how long tasks in comparable organizations take, and where opportunities for improvements are available.

For information on the first step in that analysis, the Variable Field Analysis Report, free of charge, please click here.

Perry-Lecompton USD 343 put their cooperative efforts to the test this summer. For an article featured on their own web site, please click here.

Read how the Ottawa Public School Systems performed last summer, in their first year with Cooperative Cleaning.

Click here for the case study at USD 290.

Summer Cleaning Summary 

Click here for a summary of Cooperative Cleaning benefits.

Click here for a presentation on Team Cleaning.

The next pandemic or regional outbreak is always just around the corner. There is no need to panic, but there is need to act. There are so many new tools available to you now to take a bite out of the expense and misery illness creates. 

The world death toll from the widely publicized A(H1N1) influenza virus has now exceeded 18,000 since the start in 2009. Every year, however, the seasonal influenza - which varies in type from year to year -averages 33,000 fatalities in the United States alone.

With fall comes the start of school with classes fuller than ever. MRSA outbreaks have affected nearly every sports program at public and private schools and universities in the nation. Did you know out of a class of 26 elementary school students, two or three will have serious asthma and allergy issues? These are affected by dust, mold and mildew - all part of the cleaning function. Asthma is the most common reason to be home from school and for a visit to the emergency room.

C. diff, a pathogen that can cause serious gastro-intestinal infections, is becoming the next wave of threat for residents in assisted-living facilities and patients in hospitals. A new, more lethal strain has recently appeared at assisted living centers in Arizona. 

Norovirus causes gastro-intestinal illness that spreads so quickly and is so debilitating that it can stop an ocean cruise and send the liner back to port. A hint of an outbreak can cancel a cruise for in-depth disinfection, yet large-scale tests at schools in different states have shown that at school, one in five of our children may sit at desks with Norovirus on them*.  

So times, expectations and the function of cleaning are all changing as bacteria and viruses are becoming old-line disinfectant resistant. Old cleaning procedures and fall-back positions that respond to health as an afterthought may need a makeover. The good news is that, with some assistance, you can make a healthy difference.

Cleaning the Unseen can reduce absenteeism in the workplace, school, on the campus and in the healthcare facility.

Studies from various new approaches show absenteeism reductions of 19%, 33%, 51% and even higher are possible. Combined, the available approaches can make a measureable difference that converts into healthier, happier residents, patients, students, employees, tenants and visitors. Grandma was right when she reminded, "Prevention is cheaper than cure."

Not only our experience helping organizations improve their cleaning effectiveness on the microscopic level, but those of hospitals and other medical care facilities around the world show it commonly takes a multi-faceted approach to be successful. Practical, in-situ studies at universities and corporations prove an excellent return on investment and that the Cleaning the Unseen (TM) approach - also known as Cleaning for Health - has multiple benefits for your people and facility. Risks are reduced, toxins are reduced or eliminated, cleaning is improved, olfactory response (what people smell) is improved and overall costs are contained.

Click on the illustration for a flier on seven important Cleaning for Health Systems.Get started improving the health of your people and your building by watching the ATP measurement video below on this page. Then select INFECTION CONTROL & TOTAL RESPONSE from the drop-down menu SPECIALTY MARKETS at the top of this page. For the more technically inclined, there is a detailed PUR-O-ZONE presentation on several of the new technologies available in the right-hand column. Click on Using New Technologies to Clean the Unseen.

*Boston Children's Hospital Study 

Slips and falls create the number one or the number two commercial insurance industry risk depending on which insuror you consult. The IICRC Commercial Carpet Care Technician Certification class started off with slips and falls prevention as one of its first lessons Tuesday, June 8th. PUR-O-ZONE has gathered a significant library of information on slip and fall prevention you can have access to by clicking here.

You can see photos from this morning's kickoff at Where Were You?, accessed from the Measurement and Education section in the right column. Or click here.

To become a Customer Advantages member, allowing access to the rest of the Measurement and Education section, all you have to be is a current customer. Contact Bobbi Schrader at 800-727-7876.