Contract furniture for healthcare facilities has to stand up to a significant amount of wear and tear. When you’re looking to upgrade your facility’s furnishings, asking your healthcare furniture supplier a few simple questions will help you know you’re purchasing furniture solutions that will last decades.
Here are 4 questions to ask your furniture supplier to determine if they have the quality healthcare furniture options your facility needs.
1. Is Your Furniture Easy to Clean & Disinfect?
Look for a supplier that uses materials that are easy to clean and that hold up well. Everything from hospital beds to lobby loveseats to common area tables and chairs needs to be easy to disinfect to keep staff and patients healthy. And, each piece needs to continue to look like new for years, even after being wiped daily with cleaners and other chemicals. High-quality vinyl upholstery is a great choice for healthcare furniture that’s exposed to excess dirt and contaminants, like patient or emergency rooms. And, when properly cleaned, vinyl can handle antiseptic surface treatments containing bleach.
At Blockhouse, we recommend upholstered vinyl seating to our many healthcare facility customers and work with several high-quality vinyl textile providers to bring you the most durable options out there.
2. Do You Offer Anti-Microbial Furniture?
Healthcare facility furniture spans more than patient rooms. When you’re looking to furnish lobbies, waiting rooms, staff lounges and more, you’ll likely be flipping through catalogs for table and chair options with solid wood finishes. Anti-microbial finishes on solid-surface furniture pieces for healthcare facilities are a must. That’s because hard surfaces, when created without quality materials, can harbor germs and spread disease. The best finishes keep unhealthy germs from penetrating beneath the furniture’s surface.
At Blockhouse, we use only long-lasting, reputable, anti-microbial finishes that have been tested time and time again, so you know they’ll hold up.
3. How Does Your Healthcare Furniture Resist Stains?
Upholstered chairs, loveseats or any other commercial furniture piece made with fabric need careful consideration during the buying process. Be direct with your furniture supplier and ask to see fabric quality claims and warranty information from the fabric manufacturer. Carefully review wash and care instructions prior to purchasing any fabric. And, choose patterns and colors that will make any wear that does occur less noticeable to patients.
At Blockhouse, we work with leading fabric manufacturers and offer only those fabrics that make maintaining a clean healthcare facility easier.
4. How Do I Know Your Furniture Will Truly Last?
The highest quality fabrics can still fall victim to set-in dirt and stains that go unnoticed for days. While the germs can be removed from fabrics or vinyl, those set-in stains can leave discoloration behind. Ask your healthcare furniture supplier what features or innovations they’ve incorporated into their lines to make components replaceable so a small stain doesn’t leave you stuck replacing an entire chair or sofa.
At Blockhouse, our proprietary Key-Loc cushion system was created specifically to solve this challenge. Key-Loc cushions are reversible, which means you can flip them to the unaffected side of the upholstery leaving no need to replace the entire cushion. Not only does this help your healthcare furniture last, but you’ll save money by avoiding unnecessary replacement pieces.
Blockhouse healthcare contract furniture is easy-to-clean and disinfect, offers innovative features like Key-Lock replaceable cushions, and is durable enough to handle heavy use for decades. To learn more about our reliable, high-quality healthcare furniture solutions, contact us today.