Tools and resources

Anesthesia: Virginia Mason 2016

• Greening the Operating Room
• Exemplary Document
• Virginia Mason
• Report

In 2015, Virginia Mason continued to improve on their anesthesia carts to enable anesthesiologists to have an environmentally responsible practice. The carts were optimized so that each one has a recycling, compressed aerosols, and a comingled sharps container. Once the standard work was agreed to, all of the carts were standardized to the design, so that it is intuitive and easy to use.  This…

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Beaumont Health System Green Officer Certification program

• Engaged Leadership
• Case Study
• Employee engagement
• Beaumont Health System
• Toolkit

(Employee engagement toolkit) The Beaumont Health System Green Officers program is a voluntary program where interested staffers help communicate and educate others about sustainability programming at Beaumont. Any staff member can volunteer to be a Green Officer. The Green Officers act as role models to other staff through energy, water, and waste conservation practices, and they are trained to…

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Clinician Engagement & Education: Mayo Rochestor 2016

• Greening the Operating Room
• Exemplary Document
• Mayo Clinic
• White Paper

Hospital sustainability programs reduce costs and enhance the quality of patient care. However, given the long list of priorities that hospitals must tackle, sustainability too often falls by the wayside. Today, the benefits of sustainability are too important to ignore. The operating room is often the largest generator of revenue, as well as the largest consumer of supply costs and the biggest…

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Clinician Engagement & Education: NorthShore HealthSystem 2016

• Waste
• Medical Waste
• Recycling
• Exemplary Document
• NorthShore University Health System
• Presentation
• Greening the Operating Room

Northshore University Health System has implemented waste management and recycling programs in the operating room. Employee education, staff engagement, and other initiatives have resulted in an increase in recycling rates and reductions in medical and solid waste. Open the presentation to see how Northshore was able to make sustainability improvements.

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Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center’s waste audit report

• Climate and Health
• Less Waste
• Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center
• Report
• Waste
• Toolkit

(Less waste toolkit) Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health (D-HH) is a nonprofit academic health system that serves a patient population of 1.2 million in New England. The main campus, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC), In 2014, DHMC generated 2,867.5 tons of waste and had a 35% reuse and recycling rate. As part of a five-year strategic goal planning process in 2015, D-HH’s Environmental…

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Implementation module: Medical plastic recycling in the OR

• Greening the Operating Room
• Medical Plastic Recycling
• Recycling
• Guide

Recent hospital data demonstrates that recycling in the OR can generate large volumes of recyclables—in excess of 1000lbs of medical plastics weekly at one large NYC institution with more than 40 ORs/surgical procedure areas.  At an average cost of $121 per ton for solid waste disposal and a price tag of $68 per ton for recycling the same material a hospital might pay nearly twice the price for…

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Implementation Module: Rigid Sterilization Containers in the OR

• Greening the Operating Room
• Rigid Sterilization Containers
• Guide
• Reuse, donate, or sell

The operating room generates a large volume of disposable plastics, ranging from single-use medical devices to packaging to sterile wrap to plastic pour bottles for irrigation. The vast majority of these items go out the door as waste—either with regulated medical waste (where comprehensive segregation efforts have not yet been undertaken) or as solid waste or recycling. More efficient than…

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Planning a battery recycling program for your health care facility

• Waste
• Hazardous and universal waste
• Guide
• Recycling

To avoid disposal costs and environmental and human health effects associated with battery disposal in landfills or incinerators, recycle your old batteries. With proper planning, a battery recycling program can provide good public relations, increased employee morale, and potential savings from the elimination of battery disposal.

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Mayo Clinic Rochester: Medical plastics recycling study

• Exemplary Document
• Mayo Clinic
• Greening the Operating Room
• Medical Plastic Recycling
• Study

This life cycle assessment study conducted for Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. compared the overall environmental impact of disposable polypropylene blue sterilization wraps with that of reusable aluminum hard sterilization cases.  The study found that the reusable hard cases have roughly half the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions impact than the disposable polypropylene blue wraps annually.

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RMW Reduction Clinical Plastics Recycling: Clinical Plastics Spectrum 2016

• Recycling
• Exemplary Document
• Spectrum Health
• Poster

Spectrum Health provides a sample sign for the recycling of single use surgical instruments.

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