The transfer is in response to the hospital performing below national and state standards on a survey questioning cleanliness of rooms.
Lehigh Valley Health Network is looking to a third-party company to clean hospital rooms due to performing below national and state standards on a survey.
The hospital will transfer 134 employees classified as support partners to Crothall Healthcare, according to LVHN spokesman Brian Downs. Downs said support partners generally clean rooms, but have other tasks such as talking to patients and assisting clinical workers.
“We want to make sure the support partners have more time and their main focus is to have the rooms clean,” Downs said. “We feel it is important to make sure that our facilities are clean, particularly the patient rooms.”
Downs said the move is primarily in response to the hospital consumer assessment of health care provider and systems survey, which showed 61 percent of patients reporting that LVHN rooms are always clean. The national average is 72 percent, while the state rate is 70 percent, according to the survey used as a national standard on the patients' perspective.
Downs said the transferred employees will receive the same rate of pay, and the hospital will compensate any differences in benefits for two years.
The transfer is also a cost-savings measure, Downs said.
“The more people you have, the more costly it is because of paying benefits,” Downs said. “In the long run, it’ll be more beneficial to the hospital.”
Crothall did not immediately respond to request for comment.