CLEVELAND — HOSPECO, the Cleveland-based corporation that prides itself on being a leader in the personal care “away from home” market, has acquired Nilodor, the odor-control company founded in 1955, and also based in Ohio.  The acquisition by HOSPECO, the company’s third major recent addition, will be a part of the umbrella group HOSPECO Brands Group.

HOSPECO, which already is a leader in healthcare and hospitality products such as wiping cloths, gloves and sorbents, will now also have a cleaning product line under its belt with the acquisition of Nilodor, whose odor-ameliorating output includes Bio-Enzymatic Urine Digester.

“I believe Nilodor is the perfect fit for HOSPECO,” said Les Mitson, owner and president of Nilodor for three decades.  “The combination of HOSPECO’s path to market with our

chemical manufacturing capabilities offers economies of scale and additional opportunities to the customers we now share.”

HOSPECO has announced that they will maintain the Nilodor line of products and its chemists who work to remedy application-specific odor control problems; these proprietary products will continue to be provided to the public via HOSPECO’s distribution channels. 

Mitson will remain in an advisory capacity as Nilodor continues manufacturing its line of products in Bolivar, Ohio.  Kurt Peterson, Nilodor’s current vice president of sales and marketing, will lead the Nilodor efforts under HOSPECO.

“During my time at Nilodor, we had a simple mission: to keep our customers satisfied,” Mitson said.  “Our reputation for excellence is heartening because it gives proof that we achieved this goal. 

“As we transition under the HOSPECO brand, and under the leadership of Kurt and his Nilodor team, I know our customers will be similarly nurtured and experience even greater value.”

“Total commitment to customers is, as always, our top priority,” added Peterson.  “Every Nilodor customer will have access to the same quality products and support that have defined our success in the marketplace.

“As part of HOSPECO, we will be able to offer additional lines, a dramatically expanded sales force, and a more cost-effective shipping bundle.”

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CLEVELAND — We all recognize that hospitals are designed to help heal patients; but what if they could also be designed to help heal communities? This is the question MetroHealth is attempting to answer with the unveiling of its latest hospital transformation plan.

MetroHealth has begun a nearly $800 million project with Minneapolis-based HGA Architecture, converting half of the county health system’s main campus on West 25^th Street into open green space with connections to the nearby Towpath Trail and other amenities. With this connective design, MetroHealth aims to bolster community wellness as the hospital becomes a major open and active space that can be used by everyone for activity to promote health and community engagement.

With only one to two acres of green space on the campus, this transformation will ultimately transform 25 acres of the 52-acre campus into green space, with the designs’ bottom-line ensuring the makeover of a gray and crowded campus into what they are calling a “hospital in a park.”

Hospital in a Park

The key features of this transformation plan include the installment of a roughly six- to eight-acre park along West 25^th Street, west of Scranton Road and south of MetroHealth Drive, with the space now occupied by the fortress-like Outpatient Plaza, a garage and treatment facility built in 1992. With a new hospital bed tower situated on the southern edge of the campus, MetroHealth would build a new Ambulatory Care Center and an extensive MetroHealth Wellness Gardens.

The MetroHealth Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Center, a nursing home built in 2000 that now inhabits the future site of the wellness gardens, would be removed and replaced by a new tower on the north side of the campus at West 25^th Street and Sackett Avenue. The northeast corner of the campus, now dominated by surface parking, would also become a collection of park-like spaces, with covered parking and indoor walkways making it so patients and visitors will not have to walk outside. The new layout reduces patient and visitor walking distance by 40 percent and eliminates almost all surface parking, according to a statement. Walkways throughout the campus will also include a looped path connected to the Towpath trail.

“We are creating schematic designs right now, and one of our key features is the way we’re creating ‘process neutral design’ that makes the building flexible and adaptable for the future,” said Walter Jones, MetroHealth’s senior vice president of campus transformation. “We know from research- and evidence-based design that views and access to open space and nature is beneficial for patient recovery and recuperation.”

Jones also explained that the implementation of “process neutral design” allows the creation of systems that will be adaptive, efficient and effective when the main campus opens, and for many years thereafter. In return, this design will not only beautify the campus with its trail connection and expanded green acreage, but it will also extend its benefits to surrounding neighbors.

“We’ll be able to incorporate therapies and arts in medicine programming into patients’ healing regimens. The health benefits aren’t just for patients. They’ll extend to anyone who lives, works and plays nearby,” said Jones.

This project plays a role in MetroHealth’s effort to strengthen its West 25^th neighborhood, including forming the CCH Development Corp. and an effort to turn the neighborhood into the world’s first hospital led, EcoDistrict, according to a statement. MetroHealth believes that its campus updates will not only improve care but could spur revitalization in Cleveland as well, CEO Akram Boutros, M.D., told a local newspaper.

“We’re committed to making this a community to be enjoyed by its current residents, but also we have to be committed to bringing new people in,” Boutrous said. “Otherwise this neighborhood is not sustainable as it is with so many vacant and underutilized properties.”

Construction has already begun and is expected to be completed by 2022.

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In the study conducted by Abhishek Deshpande, MD, PhD, and colleagues, researchers cultured 318 floor sites from 159 patient rooms in five participating Cleveland-area hospitals. The hospital rooms included both C. difficile infection (CDI) isolation rooms and non-CDI rooms. Researchers also cultured hands (gloved and bare) as well as other high-touch surfaces such as clothing, call buttons, medical devices, linens and medical supplies.

The findings of this study were that floors in patient rooms were often found to be contaminated with Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), VRE and C. difficile, with C. difficile being the most frequently recovered pathogen found in both CDI isolation rooms and non-CDI rooms. Of 100 occupied rooms surveyed, 41 percent had one or more high-touch objects in contact with the floor. These objects included personal items and medical devices such as blood pressure cuffs, patient socks, call buttons and other supplies. The researchers found MRSA on 18 percent of worker’s hands that handled an object in contact with the floor as well as VRE found on 6 percent of workers hands and C. diff found on three percent of worker’s hands.

“While the study emphasized the need to take floor cleanliness seriously, it did not specify exactly how this should be accomplished,” said Matt Morrison, communications manager at Kaivac, developers of the OmniFlex Crossover Cleaning system who promoted the study in a recent statement. One possible way to effectively clean hospital floors is to use Commercial Disinfecting Services such as those provided by LHI Janitorial & Disinfection Services. A cleaning service such as this is a safe and reliable way to kill bacteria, viruses and moulds that may be present in high-touch areas, helping to reduce transmission of disease and save lives!

While the study did not yet have specifics on how to solve the issue of floor contamination and cleanliness, the findings did include recommendations regarding implications for possible new procedures necessary for improved infection control in hospitals, including the education of health care personnel and patients to avoid placing “high-touch” objects on the floor when possible.

Another conclusion of the study was that further studies are needed to examine current floor-cleaning standards and disinfecting strategies in removing potential pathogens from floors, and a continued need to determine better practices based on the findings of this study.

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