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We all dread the idea of going to see a doctor, let alone having to go to the hospital. Hospitals are associated with germs, surgery and emergency needs. But hospitals have two very different meanings for me — one is personal and one is professional.
The personal one is that I’ve had the privilege and honor to work with the Hamilton Healthcare Foundation that supports Dalton’s hospital and facilities. For years, my wife and I have helped on fundraising committees, finding Westcott fellows (patrons who donate a specific amount of money) and working with the Hamilton Business Alliance to find businesses that will make financial contributions to the hospital.
Then there is the professional connection that I have with hospitals and that has to do with carpet. Since the spring of 2000 when I joined the carpet industry, I take what is lying on the floor of hospitals serious.
There are a lot of myths associated with carpet in hospitals, two of them being that carpet can’t be cleaned and maintained, or “sanitized,” enough for health care facilities to keep them germ free. And the other myth is carpet aggravates asthma and allergies, thus can’t be the best flooring option for medical needs.
I beg to differ — and so do others.
Carpet acts like a trap, keeping dust and allergens out of the air we breathe. Simply put, what falls to the carpet (dust, pet dander and many other particulates that we breathe in) tends to stay trapped in the carpet until it is removed through vacuuming or extraction cleaning. Unlike smooth floor surfaces that allow dust and other allergens to re-circulate into the breathing zone, properly maintained carpet actually contributes to improved air quality.
Independent testing has compared the distribution of airborne dust associated with normal activities on hard and soft flooring surfaces. Findings show that walking on hard surfaces disturbs more particles than walking on carpeted surfaces. In contrast, carpeted surfaces trap more particles so that walking disturbs fewer particles, resulting in less dust in the breathing zone of children and adults.
A recent article by Keith Gray of the Mohawk Group stresses the importance of carpet for our children’s health safety, saying that in battling bacteria — in places from schools to hospitals — the health care design industry has performed significant studies, especially since regulations, effective in 2008, now require hospitals to pay the expenses associated with hospital-acquired infections.
Gray points out that one recent study reported that carpet surfaces are no more likely to transmit infections than hard surfaces. In fact, the study suggested that certain hard-surface floors may have higher potential to transmit infections. In fact, it was suggested that certain hard-surface floors may have higher potential to transmit infections.
In another study, researcher and toxicology expert Mitchell Sauerhoff, Ph.D., DABT, reviewed 23 U.S. and international scientific studies and concluded in “Carpet, Asthma and Allergies — Myth or Reality” that carpet’s alleged negative characteristics are not consistent with current research. In fact, he concludes that the literature on carpet and asthma or allergies confirms that children and adults living with carpet do not have an increased incidence of asthma or allergy.
I believe what myself and so many others are trying to say is carpet has no adverse affect on air quality. I’ve been searching for years and I can’t find a single study that supports carpet is bad for indoor air quality when properly maintained. Studies always come to the opposite conclusion: carpet helps lesson the severity of symptoms and the amount of hospital visits.
The goal is to make all health care facilities aware of what the Carpet and Rug Institute is doing in testing and certifying cleaning products, like those in CRI’s Seal of Approval Program. If you can see by all the myths about carpeting, then you’ll be able to see the benefits of using carpet, including in a hospital facility.
Werner Braun is president of the Dalton-based Carpet and Rug Institute.
