Health Facilities Management
Research by Lee Ann Jarousse
Do no harm. The underlying tenet in health care applies to all hospital operations, not just those that take place within hospital walls. Saving lives and promoting community health are commendable undertakings. But to fully achieve their realization, hospitals need to be good environmental stewards.
Yet hospitals are in an unusual predicament. As community leaders and stewards of community health, the provision of care generates considerable waste – more than 6,500 tons per day – that consumes landfill space and ultimately impacts the environment. Sustainability programs help hospitals significantly reduce their environmental impact. They also can lower costs, improve organizational performance and enhance patient and employee experiences.
Implementing a sustainability program requires significant cultural change and time. . A good place to start is by examining what comes out of the facility and by analyzing how these wastes are managed by them. That said, perhaps, the dumpster services they use like tacoma dumpsters, or alike ones in their area, might be able to provide better insights into how waste is being currently managed. Waste reduction involves the diversion of waste from landfills through recycling, source reduction, reuse, repurposing, and composting. Many companies make use of dumpster dispatch Software to manage their inventory storage, waste collection, and everything that comprises the waste management operation. Besides, the personnel involved in waste management, even the hospital staff actually, can undergo osha training in Kansas City or elsewhere to learn proper and safe disposal techniques. Eighty percent of hospital refuse is solid waste, about 50 percent of which is recyclable. Focusing on waste disposal will provide some easy gains that can build support for future efforts. With the help of new technological advancements such as products to measure temperature in harsh processing environment (similar to the ones available at Temp-Pro), efforts to improve on waste disposal techniques could go a long way for mankind.
“Waste management is a critical piece of an overall sustainability plan,” says Janet Brown, director of sustainable operations for Practice Greenheath. “Hospitals need to look at the amount of waste generated in the process of care and the associated costs.” Many hospitals do not know how much they spend on total waste management because they have a variety of waste streams managed by different departments and operated by different vendors. Hospital waste typically falls into one of the following categories: solid waste, regulated medical waste, hazardous waste, pharmaceutical waste, universal waste and recycled waste. Getting a handle on the totality of waste coming out of the facility will help organizations establish a baseline, set goals and prioritize actions…
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