Going green with waste saves dough
For maximum benefit, find an environmentally sustainable waste management company that can be your partner
In hospitals and health systems, it pays to recycle.
Hospitals and health systems generate a huge amount of waste each year – by Practice Greenhealth’s estimate, 5.9 million tons of waste per year, or 33 pounds per staffed bed every day.
The opportunity for cost reduction through smart resource and waste management may be as high as 40 percent to 70 percent, representing $4 billion to $7 billion, according to the Sustainability Roadmap for Hospitals, a joint research effort by the American Society for Healthcare Engineering, the Association for the Healthcare Environment and the Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management of the American Hospital Association.
To maximize this opportunity, hospitals and health systems should look for medical waste processing companies that emphasize green initiatives, said Steve Tarkington, vice president of supply chain at group purchasing organization, HealthTrust.
Such companies may encourage facilities to move toward an integrated waste program, he said, which promotes single point oversight of all waste streams within a healthcare facility. “By doing this, it allows for greater efficiencies as they pertain to both sustainability and budget,” he said.
Environmentally sustainable waste processing companies that want to be partners with you rather than just your vendor are the ones to target, said Janet Howard, director of content and outreach of the Healthier Hospitals Initiative. “They can help with training. They can help with data. They can help with education and reporting and come up with solutions that you might not find on your own.”
If you find such a partner, make sure you put performance indicators in the contract, said Howard, so that you know your needs and expectations are being met.
Besides the savings netted from sustainability initiatives, some hospitals, like Kaiser Permanente, position their programs as delivering a community benefit and include them directly in their community benefit report, noted Howard.
