PURIFYD®SYSTEMS has been monitoring 4 key health threats since we began operations about 7 years ago – disease epidemics, toxic molds, vector-borne diseases and antibiotic resistance. In the last three years we have observed every one of these threats escalating at an increasing rate, principally due to warmer and moister climatic conditions. For the 2021 season, our focus for our recreational park customers is on minimizing the health risks to guests and staff of COVID-19 and toxic molds.
In this article, we share six best practices which your health protection system needs to deliver for a safe and strong 2021 recreational season.
Best Practice #1: Eliminate the Threat – Your front line of defense.
In your COVID-19 safety plan, you have implemented controls to lessen the risk of contracting the virus. Most operators tend to focus on the use of Personal Protective Equipment and Administrative Controls such as social distancing, controlled access and hand washing as they are easily understood and implemented. However, these controls on their own are insufficient, particularly when it comes to dealing with COVID virus variants that can be up to 70% more transmissible and are at the root of health authority concerns over a third wave of the pandemic.
The most effective control is to eliminate health threats before they become a problem. Similarly, for Toxic Mold, eliminating spores in the air so they cannot proliferate is the only effective way to prevent mold related health issues.
When it comes to pathogens and contaminants in your rental units and common facilities, eliminating them at source is your front line of defense and administrative controls the fallback.
Best Practice #2: Ensure Interior Air Quality – it is more important than disinfecting surfaces.
This is particularly relevant for COVID as Science has shown that the greatest risk in contracting the virus is not from surface contamination but from aerosolization– the virus can hang in the air in poorly ventilated spaces, such as RV interiors, for hours. The health protection system that you deploy must effectively eliminate the virus not only on surfaces but also in the air and in air handling systems.
Ensuring your interior air quality is of the highest standard is vital. It is not sufficient to just “spray and pray” – hoping that by cleaning and disinfecting surfaces, you have eliminated the risks.
Best Practice #3: Manage the Risk Profile – From your guests’ perspective.
Your local health authority has mandated activities which must be included in your COVID-19 safety plan. For example, sanitizing rental facilities at turnover and common facilities such as washrooms and laundry on a regularly scheduled basis.
It is not just about the mandatory requirements, however. Our customers are reporting that their guests have become hyper-aware of health risks, not only from COVID-19 but also of other contaminants, particularly toxic molds. By implementing a health protection system that has strong efficacy across a wide range of contaminants, you will strengthen guest confidence which in turn leads to stronger reservations – something our customers experienced in the 2020 season.
Best Practice #4: Deliver Breath and Depth of Decontamination
Your health protection system must reliably eliminate any contaminant, of any size, anywhere and be easily scalable. It all comes down to practicality. Most contaminants are not visible to the human eye, so we don’t know what is lurking on surfaces or in the air or causing that strange odor. And we don’t have the skill or time to figure it out. Your health protection system needs to solve that problem for you. It must reliably and effectively eliminate any bacteria, virus, mold, mold spore, allergen, or chemical contaminant in the air, air handling systems and on surfaces. In other words – take no prisoners!
Best Practice #5: Achieve Reliable and Auditable Results
No more “spray and pray”. Your staff must be confident that they can consistently achieve high quality results on time and on cost target and that you can demonstrate this to guests, staff and the local health authority when they show up for that surprise audit of your safety plan. How you achieve this is by following a structured treatment protocol that includes a quality audit capability.
Your health protection system should come complete with best practices on which your staff are trained and ideally, certified. This should also include training on an audit tool, such as a luminometer, that enables you to perform pre and post treatment tests. “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” – thank-you Peter Drucker!
Best Practice #6: Generate a Sustainable ROI
Finally, and most importantly for your business, your health protection system must generate a return on investment to be sustainable.
There is no point in implementing a system that can not be maintained – which means your health protection system needs to be both cost effective but as importantly, offer you opportunities to offset costs and even better to allow you to generate new revenue and new business opportunities.
Know your health protection system business case. Does it:
- Increase guest confidence and boost reservations?
- enable optimal utilization of rental assets and common facilities?
- Offer a means to offset COVID sanitization costs?
- Create opportunities to drive incremental revenue through the provision of new guest services?
How We Can Help?
Our mission at PURIFYD®SYSTEMS is keeping the environments in which we live, work and travel, healthy and safe places to be. We are the trusted member benefit provider of health protection systems for ARVC, CCRVC, RVDA and NAFA.
PURIFYD®SYSTEMS’ Health Protection Systems deliver results for every one of these best practices. If you would like to see what the business case would look like for your resort, you can reach us at ask@purifydsystems.com or 866-770-0711.
To learn more about our systems and products visit purifydsystems.com.
See our Spring 2021 start-up special: Discounts From ARVC Member Benefit Providers | ARVC
Have a safe and strong 2021 season!
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