Arnold King takes pride in keeping KU Health System St. Francis clean and safe for patients

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - An Environmental Service Director at the University of Kansas Health System St. Francis receives recognition for his ongoing efforts to keep the hospital safe.

Arnold King has served as the Environmental Service Director at the University of Kansas Health System St. Francis campus for six-years.

King says serving patients with quality is his number one priority, “it’s actually something that I love to do.”

Since 2016, Arnold King has served as the Environmental Service Director and he says he’s passionate about keeping a clean facility and keeping patients safe.

“When I come in each day my main focus is to make sure the staff has what they need, the staff is working safe, and the staff is engaging with their patients for the rooms that they’re cleaning in the folks that they’re coming around in contact with each and every day,” said King.

King says he’s passionate about keeping a clean facility and keeping patients safe.

“When you provide a clean environment, you’re providing a healing environment. When you provide a clean environment, you’re providing a safe environment. When you provide a clean environment, you’re providing quality that people cannot only see but they can feel,” King explained. “It’s not just a passion but it’s something that I feel is a calling for me.”

“When I got into this business, I pulled trash and pulled medical waste around the hospital. and somebody saw something in me 15 or 16 years ago, that I am eternally grateful for,” he added.

King says he pushes the team to operate at the hospital’s four-star cleanliness standards. “I’m instilling that in my managers, I’m instilling that in my supervisors. I’m instilling that in the workers that have been for here 20 years and, the workers who have been here two months,” he said. “So they know that from top-down if there’s something on the floor if the director picks it up, you pick it up. If I engage with a doctor or nurse walking down the hallway, that’s the same expectations I have for everybody up under me.”

King says his team are the true unsung heroes, “we have to have the trash person, we have to have the person willing to into the room, engage with the patient.”

“We have to have the person who’s willing to sweep the floor, we have to have the person who’s willing to talk to the patient every single day as they clean the room because then that patient is encouraged each and every day,” he added.

He says he appreciates when patients send “Thank You’s” for their efforts, “we’re only in a room for 11 minutes, but those 11 minutes we feel makes us part of the healing team here and our physicians and nurses tell us that as well, so we enjoy the fact that they let us know that being part of the healing team is a combined effort.”

King manages about 50 employees.

King told us that he hopes the team continues to advance the hospital’s satisfaction scores.

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