Working hard for hygiene: SCHELL wash basin taps in doctor’s practices

10-minute read

In doctor’s practices and other outpatient facilities in the healthcare sector, hand hygiene and maintaining drinking water quality are particularly important goals – for personnel and patients alike. After all, doctor’s practices welcome a wide range of individuals, including vulnerable people who are especially susceptible to contracting infections. At the same time, these premises are visited by sick individuals who can spread germs. Wash basins in the sanitary facilities often see shared use by practice staff and visitors alike. Practice owners therefore need wash basin taps with a durable and high-quality design that are easy to use while also supporting user hygiene. The SCHELL portfolio offers ideal solutions for this scenario.

According to the WHO, some 80 percent of all germs are passed on via the hands. This can occur as a result of touching contaminated surfaces after washing hands, for example. To avoid these risks, experts recommend installing wash basin taps that can be triggered without contact via an infrared sensor. Contactless sensor taps from SCHELL make an important contribution to user hygiene. Their ‘hands-off’ operation completely avoids direct skin contact with the tap while someone is washing their hands at the basin. The flow of water starts automatically once a hand comes into the sensor’s detection range and stops automatically once the hand moves out of range of the sensor. This means that the tap does not need to be touched again by clean hands in order to stop the flow of water. This minimises the risk of contact infections. In this way, contactless taps make a valuable contribution to user hygiene not only for practice staff but also for vulnerable patients. This working principle means that contactless SCHELL taps also use up to 70 percent less water compared with conventional single-lever mixers – because water only flows when it is truly needed.

Sensor taps from SCHELL can perform stagnation flushes independently and therefore help to maintain drinking water quality. These flushes can be configured to take place every 24 h or 24 h after the last use/flush, including on weekends and public holidays. Regular stagnation flushes reduce the health risk posed by harmful bacteria such as Legionella spreading excessively throughout the drinking water installation. Most contactless SCHELL taps are also compatible with SSC and SWS, which offers further advantages in relation to the individually adjusted automation of stagnation flushes as well as the system-wide logging of these flushes. With SWS and networked taps, even the specified normal operation of the drinking water installation can be simulated. For more information, see SCHELL’s blog post on the topic of stagnation flushes.

Thanks to its vandal-resistant, all-metal design, the CELIS series offers a long service life even in sanitary facilities with a large clientele. The CELIS series offers both battery- and mains-operated versions, as well as models for mixed water or cold water/pre-mixed water.

Contactless actuation and optional stagnation flush activation makes this tap the perfect solution for doctor’s practices and healthcare service providers. CELIS E is compatible with SSC and SWS.

However, adjusting tap settings with SCHELL Single Control SSC is even simpler than configuring these settings directly on the tap. By using the SSC Bluetooth® module and its associated app, additional parameters such as sensor range, etc. can also be configured.If the Bluetooth® module stays attached to the fitting, other benefits apart from parameter setting then become available, like performing automated stagnation flushes using an integrated flushing calendar at/on specified times and days, plus automated logging. Individual taps can be configured so that they flush automatically in the morning at a specified time, for example, and even when the practice is closed – such as on public holidays or during company holidays.

The Gutshaus Joint Medical Practice in Vienna opted for solutions from SCHELL. This practice features a high-quality fit-out, with doctors and medical staff working in eight generously sized consultation rooms offering around 300 sqm of space.

Four dentists and seven assistants work at the Sterdent joint dental practice in Sterrebeek, near Brussels. These modern consultation rooms are equipped with solutions from SCHELL.

Solution:The practice owners chose water-saving, contactless CELIS E wash basin taps, which now promote good user hygiene at all wash basins for dentists and their assistants. As water only flows when hands are held in the tap sensor field, the CELIS E taps help to cut water usage by up to 70 percent in comparison with single-lever taps. Every morning, before the working day begins, the SCHELL taps are also flushed automatically at a preconfigured time. This flushes water out of the piping before it can stagnate, meaning that pathogens – such as Legionella, for example – cannot spread excessively, even when the practice is closed at weekends or during holidays.

See our case study to read about the day-to-day experience of the practice team with these high-quality SCHELL taps.

In outpatient medical scenarios, hand hygiene standards are just as important as drinking water quality. The durability of the wash basin taps installed is also another important aspect. Thanks to its broad-based portfolio of taps and fittings, SCHELL offers the perfect solutions here to benefit doctor’s practices, dentists and healthcare service providers. Water-saving, contactless fittings – from the MODUS, CELIS and XERIS series, for example – are a reliable choice wherever wash basins are used by many different people, and especially by vulnerable individuals. Thanks to their IR sensors, these contactless wash basin taps promote good user hygiene while minimising the risk of contact infections. The taps also perform stagnation flushes to help maintain drinking water quality. Practices and joint practices who choose SCHELL taps that can be configured using SSC for their sanitary facilities also benefit from other advantages in relation to automated stagnation flushes. These include flushes on specific days and at specific times of the day using an integrated flushing calendar, as well as flush logging – even when the practice is closed, such as on public holidays or company holidays.

Want to know more about how SCHELL products are a perfect match for healthcare applications? Go to our case studies to learn about all of our other exciting projects.