.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Think you’ve got laundry issues? Imagine the volume of sheets, towels, pillowcases and other linens that major hospitals such as Iowa Methodist Medical Center use. Now multiply that by Iowa Health System’s hospitals in six other communities across the state, and you’re talking about tons and tons of laundry each day.

Today, Iowa Health System officials will cut the ribbon on a new $10 million laundry and linen facility on Des Moines’ East Side that will serve all Iowa Health hospitals in the state, with capacity to contract with numerous other Iowa hospitals.

The heart of the 48,000-square-foot facility, located at 1600 E. Washington Ave., is the computerized Futurail overhead conveyer system. The computer-controlled system choreographs the movements of hundreds of laundry bags weighing up to 500 pounds each, automatically dumping the loads into the massive washer and dryer systems and then on to high-speed finishing equipment that irons, folds and stacks the laundered items.

The facility, which incorporates green technology to save water and energy and improved ergonomic workstations for employees, will replace three aging facilities Iowa Health operates at Iowa Methodist in Des Moines, Trinity Regional Medical Center in Fort Dodge and Allen Hospital in Waterloo.

“This is an economic benefit for Iowa Health as well as a safety enhancement for employees,” said Daniel McDow, chief operating officer of Iowa Health System Consolidated Services, HIS’s logistics and transportation arm.

The operation is a partnership between Iowa Health and Aramark Healthcare, which Iowa Health has contracted to manage the facility. Iowa Health expects to save a minimum of $5 million over the course of its initial 15-year management agreement with Aramark through operating efficiencies.

“Initially, the Iowa Health System will provide about 15 million pounds annually,” said Lou Pingel, general manager of the operation, which operates as Midwest Healthcare Textile Services. “Then after we start all those hospitals, we can look at additional capacity. The plant has about a 20-million to 25-million-pound capacity, even on an eight-hour shift, seven days a week. Then we still have some flexibility for some p.m. shifts.”

MHTS will employ approximately 65 people, of which about 35 are expected to be new hires with the remainder transferring from the existing plants. Most will earn $8.50 an hour but will receive full Iowa Health System benefits.

Despite the size of the operation, the facility will use about one less gallon of water per pound of laundry than the plants it replaces, said Jodie Roettger, a district manager with Aramark.

“The Jensen equipment reuses water, and we also recycle the heat that comes off of the steam that we use in the tunnel system,” she said. “So we’re actually getting additional energy efficiency through that process.” Additionally, the system uses a giant reservoir so that all of the water from the facility drains continuously into a single four-inch sewer line.

The combined operation for the hospitals was made possible by standardizing the types of linens used at each Iowa Health hospital, which eliminates the need to process smaller batches of unlike materials, McDow said.

“The health system has come together to say, ‘If we all do the same thing, we can really produce and make things happen less expensively than what we’re doing right now,'” he said. The facility will begin by serving Iowa Methodist, Iowa Lutheran Hospital and Blank Children’s Hospital. This week it will bring on Trinity in Fort Dodge, followed by Iowa Health’s hospitals in Cedar Rapids and later Dubuque, the Quad Cities and Sioux City.

The facility’s two 80-foot-long tunnel washers will move the laundry through 15 cycles in 30 minutes. With a load capacity of 20,000 pounds each, the machines will provide twice the capacity Iowa Health needs, which provides a buffer in the event of a natural disaster or other catastrophic event that may affect the hospitals, McDow said. “The other thing is, we want to build this business and help other hospitals in the state through our laundry,” he said.

Broadlawns Medical Center is among the hospitals that have already indicated interest in contracting their laundry services out to Iowa Health as a cost-saving move, McDow said.

“We’ve said, ‘Let us get our hospitals up and running first,'” he said. “So we’ve had other hospitals approach us, because they know the value of quality linen service, and we can do it a lot less expensively.”