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Technical Duties of a Hospital

A hospital has many important technical duties. These responsibilities exist outside of the realms of healing the sick and patching up the wounded. To meet these technical duties, a hospital employs a variety of staff positions dedicated to cleaning rooms, preparing meals for patients and ensuring proper disposal of contaminated items.

  1. Biohazard Disposal

    • It is the duty of each hospital to properly dispose of medical waste such as used gauze pads, needles and other items that come into contact with bodily fluids. Surgical assistants sterilize tools used in operating rooms such as scalpels and other cutting tools to reduce the risk of biohazard contamination to zero. In addition, each patient room contains a biohazard disposal box for the safe discarding of needles or other sharp disposal objects that have been used on patients. It is the responsibility of the hospital to dispose of these materials in compliance with state standards to minimize the risk of pathogen exposure to patients and medical staff.

    Feeding Patients

    • Hospitals are required to attend to the dietary needs of patients. To improve the negative connotation associated with "hospital food," many medical institutions have begun hiring nutritionists to plan menus that provide adequate caloric content without the high-fat contents of previous menus. According to an article published in "Time" magazine, hospitals began looking into healthier ingredients such as bison and organically grown greens as early as 2006. Serving natural foods reduces the sodium and fat intake of patients and fulfills the hospital's technical requirements in a more medically conscious way.

    Sanitizing Rooms

    • Hospitals are required to sanitize all rooms to a standard that works to eliminate all bacteria. To that end, all hospitals that are cleaning rooms correctly earn certification by the Cleaning Industry Management Standard. This means a third-party assessment team has reviewed hospital cleaning procedures and ruled them to be exceptional. Clean rooms limit the possibility of postoperative infections in patients and reduce the risk to medical personnel working long hours in the hospital. Medical personnel who work long hours in hospitals that are not cleaned properly are at greater risk for hospital-borne infections because of how long these professionals are exposed.

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