Madison United Healthcare Linen Information

MUHL is a freestanding corporation and is able to finance capital requirements without affecting its member hospital's borrowing capacities. It can act on its capital requirement efficiently without time consuming (and therefore costly) applications to the health agencies. MUHL is located on an industrial site with adequate space for expansion. The laundry facility can easily accommodate increases in the linen usage of the members it serves, whether the increases are the result of higher consumption levels of current members or if additional members join the cooperative. Finally, all of MUHL's costs are identifiable. Often an in-hospital laundry's expenses are charged to other areas (nursing, CSR, maintenance), or are difficult to evaluate (utilizes, cafeteria, storage of new linens, personnel services, etc.). Consequently, the actual costs of owning and operating an in-house laundry are usually much understated. A single, custom-built laundry, properly planned, staffed, and managed such as MUHL can produce linen service at a lower cost than in-hospital laundries. At 13.5 million pounds of laundry annually, MUHL is able to take advantage of volume processing techniques and volume purchasing discounts resulting in substantial savings to member hospitals both in linen purchase costs as well as laundry processing costs. MUHL also compares advantageously with commercial laundry operations. A modern, properly managed commercial laundry and linen service can usually provide comparable services. However, any commercial operation must be concerned not only with its costs, but with its profit margin as well. Therefore, for comparable series, the cost per pound for a central laundry facility like MUHL will be less than a commercial laundry. Additionally, MUHL members have more than simple customer status. As members, they affect MUHL operational policies either directly through Board membership or indirectly through Linen Service Committee membership. The increased control can be used to customize MUHL procedures to meet the unique and special requirements of the healthcare market.