At AHE Exchange26: Building Safer, Smarter Reusable Linen Programs

Reusable linen is a constant presence in health care, yet the systems required to ensure that linen is clean, available, appropriately used, and safely handled can easily go unnoticed. At AHE Exchange 2026 in New Orleans, Infection Control Today® brought together experts from commercial laundry services, environmental services (EVS), and infection prevention to examine what operational excellence in reusable linen management actually looks like.

The panel included Dyan Troxell, MSN, RN, director of clinical education at HandCraft Linen Services; J.J. Odom, MBA, CHESP, CMIP, T-CHEST, university director of buildings and grounds for UConn Health and John Dempsey Hospital; and chair-elect of the AHE Board; and Jenna Rivers, MPH, CPH, CIC, manager of infection prevention and control at Moffitt Cancer Center.

For Troxell, timely delivery, order accuracy, and linen rejection rates are key performance indicators, but meaningful measurement requires cooperation between the laundry and the health care facility. If rejected linen is discarded or mixed into soiled linen, for example, the laundry provider may never know a quality problem occurred.

“We need a partnership with the health care facility to give us back that reject linen,” Troxell said. Without that feedback, a provider may believe its rejection rate is lower than it actually is.

For the rest of the interview, check out ICT’s Q&A of the panel discussion:

The Hidden Challenges of Health Care Linen: Waste, Education, and Accountability

Rivers brought the infection prevention perspective to linen quality. When clean linen arrives, staff should identify any packaging, protection, or linen that does not meet expectations and segregate questionable items, particularly when there is a potential patient safety risk. Odom said his EVS staff inspects linen as they fill carts and remove items with even small spots, tears, or other defects before they reach patient care areas.

Waste presents another challenge. Odom pointed to unnecessary linen brought into isolation rooms as a common example. If a nurse brings 15 blankets into a room and the patient is discharged shortly afterward, unused blankets may still need to enter the soiled-linen process.

“Really educating them to take only what you need,” Odom said, can help reduce unnecessary use without leaving units short of supplies.

Education, however, cannot be a one-time exercise. Troxell recommended incorporating linen practices into new-hire orientation and annual education while reinforcing individual topics through brief videos, signage, huddles, and other recurring communication.

“Repetition is good,” she said. “You can't just have it be that one-time check-the-box approach. It doesn't work.”

Facilities should then use data to determine whether those interventions are producing lasting improvements. Odom added that data should be paired with active rounding and conversations with frontline employees. When one area at his facility began experiencing linen shortages, a utilization review showed that volumes had increased. Adjusting PAR levels helped correct the problem.

Asked what EVS leaders should examine when evaluating their reusable linen programs, Odom identified 3 priorities: linen quality and the provider's processes for supplying hygienically clean linen, adjusted patient days and actual linen utilization, and direct feedback from departments receiving linen. Rivers emphasized a multidisciplinary approach and recommended involving infection prevention in the evaluation of laundry operations.

Ultimately, the discussion repeatedly returned to partnership.

Troxell said the ideal EVS leader can be summed up in one word: “engaged.” Regular communication, data sharing, education, and established relationships make problems easier to address when they arise.

Rivers echoed that message from the infection prevention perspective. “Communication and collaboration would be my plug,” she said, emphasizing that the first interaction among infection prevention, EVS, and the laundry provider should not occur when something has already gone wrong.

For Odom, organizations such as TRSA and experienced laundry partners can also provide education, tools, utilization data, and expertise that EVS leaders do not need to develop on their own.

“We don't have to figure it out anymore,” Odom said. “Take advantage of your vendor partners.”