'Largest laundry cooperative' opens huge Chicago plant - News

Hundreds of Chicago luminaries in business, healthcare and politics gathered June 3 for the grand opening of what is being billed as the nation's largest and busiest healthcare laundry cooperative, Hospital Laundry Services (HLS).

Built in Wheeling, IL, a suburb northwest of Chicago, the 310,000-square-foot plant could easily house several jumbo jets. Virtually everything about the facility would make even the most grizzled hospital laundry supervisor stand in awe: thousands of freshly washed scrubs draped on individual hangers march in unison as they course their way down ceiling-mounted tracks; ceiling fans with 20-foot blades help offset heat generated by gigantic driers and washers the size of freight cars.

HLS' 400-plus employees process more than 200,000 pounds of linen a day, working two shills. The p]ant processes approximately 60 million pounds of linen a year, an impressive total that is still about 24 million shy of full capacity, said Bill Jones, vice president of operations.

HLS is a cooperative owned by 44 Chicago area hospitals, including Northwestern Memorial, as well as several in southern Wisconsin and northwest Indiana. It services 16 nursing homes and more than 400 outpatient locations, including ambulatory surgery centers and physician offices.

The coop's sterile recovery business, a comprehensive sterile pack operation whose 80 employees process drapes, gowns, OR towels, currently serves 22 hospitals and assembles more than 4,500 packs a day. Bar codes and radio frequency chips embedded in the textiles allow HLS to accurately track each customer's goods. Delivery and pickups at some of HLS' larger hospital customers are as often as three times daily.

The HLS plant also provides linen rental services to hospital off-site locations, such as outpatient facilities, surgery centers and physician offices, as well as a linen management program that provides trained managers and linen staff onsite at hospitals to handle the entire linen operation.

HLS began as a cooperative laundry service in 1971 with the construction of a large plant on the west side of Chicago. A second plant was built soon after on the north side, near Wrigley Field. Over the years, tougher city ordinances restricted movement in and out the facilities.

John Hall is a former senior editor of Healthcare Purchasing News and a Chicago-based freelance writer specializing in healthcare.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Healthcare Purchasing News
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group