{"id":3029,"date":"2010-12-01T16:37:29","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T23:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unrbep.org\/?p=3029"},"modified":"2010-12-01T16:37:29","modified_gmt":"2010-12-01T23:37:29","slug":"hospitals-boost-sustainability-efforts-reduce-environmental-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/hospitals-boost-sustainability-efforts-reduce-environmental-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Hospitals Boost Sustainability Efforts, Reduce Environmental Impact"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kelly M. Pyrek<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n

The healthcare industry is rife with opportunities to reduce the environmental impact it creates, with the added benefits of institutional financial gain, improved patient outcomes, better staff health and reduced turnover, and community benefit, according to a report from Practice Greenhealth and from the Institute for Innovation in Large Organizations.(1) An increasing number of healthcare institutions are endeavoring to reuse, recycle and repurpose medical supplies and devices to promote better sustainability.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the healthcare sector accounting for a large part of the U.S. carbon footprint \u2013 8 percent, according to a 2009 JAMA study(2) \u2013 industry involvement in and support of sustainability efforts is no longer a question of \u2018why\u2019 or \u2018when,\u2019 but of \u2018how,\u2019\u201d says Lars Thording, senior director of marketing and public affairs for Ascent Healthcare Solutions. \u201cAlthough a commitment to sustainability is about reducing environmental impact, it is also inexorably tied to the issues of cost and quality care. These are top issues in the burgeoning reform of healthcare. A sustainability measure is not realistic and cannot be effectively implemented if it does not take into account impacts to cost and patient care.\u201d Thording continues, \u201cA positive sign of progress is that hospital sustainability coordinators and green teams are on the rise. They are helping to guide purchasing decisions and are formulating policies for hospital employees. But a green team isn\u2019t enough. Nurses on the hospital floor, surgeons in the OR, administrators and suppliers are all a part of the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Healthcare professionals should be conscious of\u00a0how healthcare contributes to the waste stream. \u201cThe hospital industry generates multiple types of waste that can be categorized into 10 waste streams,\u201d explains Debra Gillmeister, MBA, a director for Stericycle\u2019s healthcare service division. \u201cEighty percent are highly regulated, such as regulated medical waste (RMW), pharmaceutical waste and hazardous waste. Each of these must be properly segregated and disposed of to insure that the environment is protected and that laws and regulations are followed. Effective segregation diminishes total waste and the facilities\u2019 carbon footprint.\u201d Gillmeister is a former advisory board member for the American Hospital Association\u2019s American Society for Healthcare Environmental Services.<\/p>\n

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By Kelly M. Pyrek The healthcare industry is rife with opportunities to reduce the environmental impact it creates, with the added benefits of institutional financial gain, improved patient outcomes, better staff health and reduced turnover, and community benefit, according to a report from Practice Greenhealth and from the Institute for Innovation in Large Organizations.(1) An … Continue reading Hospitals Boost Sustainability Efforts, Reduce Environmental Impact<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3030,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029\/revisions\/3030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}