Carolinas Medical Center: Behavioral water reduction in operating rooms

Less water toolkit

Description

(Less water toolkit) There are over 50 million inpatient surgeries annually in the United States according to the CDC, and the majority of clinicians still practice the tradition of hand washing with soap as standard procedure. Carolinas Medical Center’s Green OR Committee discovered that only 22 percent of their clinicians were utilizing waterless scrubs (alcohol-based hand rubs). After facility education and system-wide adoption, over 80 percent of surgical personnel favored the waterless scrubs. This new behavior change translated directly to 2.7 million liters of water savings resulting in annual financial savings of $158,000.

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