Kuusamo Health Centre satisfied with workwear

#customerexperience #healthcare #workwear

At Kuusamo Health Centre, in Kuusamo, Finland, good workwear is an important part of nursing care. Each piece of workwear delivered to the health centre contains a smart chip. The chip collects information on how often the uniforms are in use and wash, which makes it easier to monitor and anticipate need.

“For us, our uniforms also serve as protective clothing! It must be practical, fit well and be hygienic. It also allows our customers to identify our healthcare professionals,” says Marjo Jurmu, Director of Nursing at Kuusamo Basic Health Services.

Previously, a challenge at the health centre was that no single person had overall responsibility for the organisation’s workwear and uniforms. Now, what used to be nearly weekly problems with workwear are in the past.

“Before our cooperation with Lindström began, no one in our organisation had overall responsibility for workwear. This applied to everything from orders to the availability and logistics of workwear. Our own laundry had also ended operations. In addition, we got mixed feedback on workwear as we often missed or lacked models, sizes and availability. Whenever the right size was available, hoarding ensued,” recounts Jurmu.

A smart chip in workwear makes daily life easier

Each piece of Lindström workwear contains a smart chip that makes it very easy to track the use, repairs and washes of workwear. This also ensures that all medical professionals at Kuusamo Health Centre have daily access to clean and comfortable workwear. The textiles are washed according to the highest hygiene regulations.

Workwear is available to employees in the designated storage space. Employees can collect workwear conveniently using their personal access card, allowing workwear demand and wash cycles to be monitored by work role, for example.

“We know exactly how many pieces of workwear are in circulation and how frequently employees change protective clothing. I’m sure we could obtain data on a lot of other things we haven’t taken advantage of yet. Thanks to the smart chip, it is now also easier to distribute workwear costs between different units,” notes Jurmu, adding:

“Our employees are satisfied with the workwear. Clothes are easy to find in the right size and comfortable to use, and there is enough clean protective clothing. The hoarding of workwear has also stopped. Although we haven’t measured whether the workwear service has increased our employee satisfaction, I believe this to be the case,” Jurmu sums up.

Satisfied workwear users at Kuusamo Health Centre

Head Nurse/Hygiene Nurse Pirkko Määttä and Head Nurse Marja-Leena Klemetti at Kuusamo Health Centre are satisfied with the new workwear and Lindström’s workwear service.

“Thanks to the new workwear, quality and availability have improved. Picking up workwear from the designated storage is easy with a personal access card. It’s great that with smart technology, the circulation of work clothes can be tracked and responded to in order to ensure that there are enough of the right sizes. If necessary, it is possible to monitor workwear use down to the user level,” Määttä describes.

“I have a feeling that with the new workwear service, clothes are now changed frequently enough because they are more easily accessible and do not need to be searched around for up and down the corridors. This is a good thing from a hygiene point of view.”

“We switched to Lindström’s workwear in April 2020.  Before this, finding suitable workwear was a constant problem as the sizes were either too big or too small. Looking around for workwear also took time. Switching to Lindström’s workwear has made picking up workwear faster, saving both my and our employees’ time. Employees can choose between different sizes and fabrics. Personally, I find the microfibre workwear comfortable to wear.  I also find it good that we chose a uniform colour, navy blue, for our health centre,” shares Klemetti.