MHACB 560 COMPETENCY ONE ASSESSMENT
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Feb 20, 2024
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Competency One Assessment
Gwendolyn Thompson
University of Phoenix
MHACB 560
Nicole Goy
Due Date
2
Competency One Assessment
Local Hospital Sustainability Initiative (Blue Wrap Recycling)
Blue wrap, made from polypropylene plastic, is used for wrapping surgical instruments for sterilization. The U.S. EPA estimates that blue wrap accounts for 19 percent of all operating room waste. Blue wrap recycling is a fairly new initiative. Our Plano campus currently recycles this blue wrap, and Dallas will soon follow this year, diverting non-biodegradable waste from landfills. Polypropylene has a relatively low market value; thus, collection and shipping expenses
need to be kept to a minimum. In essence, the amount spent on collecting and transportation cannot exceed the money made from recycling (about $0.04 per pound) and the money saved on disposal (around $0.03 per pound, or $56 per ton).
Mission and Vision Statement
Our commitment to our environment is reflected in our values:
Selfless Service
– We are an earth-friendly healthcare system, reducing our environmental impact and supporting a healthy community with an enthusiastic spirit.
Passionate Advocacy
– We sustain our pediatric health system through innovation, empowerment, and accountability for the children we serve today and for generations to come.
Commitment to Excellence
– We are true leaders of change who continue to explore and implement novel sustainability practices to promote a culture of exemplary environmental performance.
Unwavering Integrity
– We are transparent, authentic, and honest in our sustainability
journey. We recognize that our path is challenging, and we are committed to creating a better planet, community partner, and workplace due to our efforts.
Outcomes to Expect
Two important facets of Children's Health's Environmental Services program are waste reduction and increased recycling. Our main objectives are to increase recycling pounds on every
campus and decrease regulated medical waste. We recycled 785 tons of waste in 2020, a 72% improvement over 2019 levels. Materials and supplies are delivered on pallets every day to
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Children’s Health. Our Supply Chain Distribution Center uses reusable pallets to move material to and from the warehouse each day. Standard wooden pallets are picked up by a vendor and put back into the pallet market instead of being sent to the landfill. It is anticipated that Children's Health will become the top hospital in Texas for waste management and the biggest consumer of renewables among all pediatric hospitals in the United States as a result.
Strategies to Achieve
There’s a variety of ways to successfully utilize blue wrap recycling, including peer matching with another healthcare facility that has previously developed successful programs and offering a waste audit to discover the correct linkages that will optimize recycling.
Getting staff acceptance and support is crucial for any new initiative. Find out from the staff how they see the program operating. Focusing on a hospital operation area that is recognized to produce clean materials is also crucial (clean plastics are preferred by the recycling
market). The surgical services and laboratory divisions frequently use blue wrap.
First, get input on creating a blue wrap waste reduction and recycling program from the sterile processing department and charge nurses. To determine how much blue wrap is being thrown away, ask the hospital for information on how much is bought each week or month. Finally, assemble your lead recycling "team" to create, carry out, and oversee the recycling program in addition to educating hospital personnel. Discuss the hospital's intention to recycle blue wrap and other plastics by working with the county or city recycling coordinator and the local waste hauler. Request the required pick-up service and collection containers as well.
Arrange sufficient loading dock space for the storage of blue wrap before pick-up as part of the logistics plan, working with the key players' cooperation. Plan the labor and equipment needed for on-site consolidation and potential baling. Contract with current (local) providers for
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the required pick-up services. Plan the arrangement of any existing or new collection bins, as well as the kinds of bins and the spaces where they will be used. Then implement and monitor the program.
Blue Wrap Recycle Matrix
One Year
Five Years Ten Years
s
Cumulative Net Waste Savings per Adjusted Patient Day Extended to Five Years Dollars per adjusted patient day- Energy Use Reduction
-$0.75
$2.75
Cost Savings
$0.02B
$5.4B $15B
Cost Projections after Implementation and Environmental Costs
134
121
+13
Revenue Resources for Initiative-Blue Wrap Project Runway
2018
2023
2028
Local/State/National
110K
250K
Costs and Benefits
Hospitals generate a lot of trash blue sterile wrap from the surgical kits they utilize in the operating room. If there is no recycling scheme in place, blue wrap can't be reused and ends up as waste right away. Reusable sturdy cases for surgical kits reduce waste and do away with blue wrap. Children's Health is dedicated to assisting you in making knowledgeable decisions regarding your medical care. Polypropylene has a relatively low market value; thus, collection and shipping expenses need to be kept to a minimum. To start the hospital has had to establish a low-cost collection and transport system. In essence, the amount spent on collecting and transportation cannot go above the money made from recycling (about $0.04 per pound) and the money saved on disposal (around $0.03 per pound, or $56 per ton). Waste Management is one of
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the local waste collection companies in Dallas. Waste Management Incorporated provides a 40 cubic yard roll-off container at no cost, which is filled with a blue sterile wrap. Three or four times a month, the container is hauled, saving $400 in disposal expenditures, and removing 3.5 tons of blue sterile wrap from the solid waste stream. After enough blue sterile wrap has been gathered, Waste Management bales the material and delivers it.
Patterns/Similarities Among Resources
As mentioned before, blue wrap recycling is a new waste management tool. It’s not widespread but is being utilized in quite a few hospitals across the nation and its utilization is growing. One similarity is the amount of time spent collecting. Every week, the hospital's custodial crew devotes fewer than thirty minutes to emptying all the collecting containers as they
are filled. Complete bags, approximately 17 pounds per, are placed onto the loading dock of the building. Typically, hospitals provide their sorted blue sterile wrap and plastic film to nearby nonprofit recycling groups, which use the money they receive from the sale of recyclable goods to fund a range of community initiatives. Organizations that utilize blue wrap recycling send their collection of blue wraps to manufacturers that shred it with textile shredders, melt it down, and reform it into various useful objects.
State Resources
A great resource for Children’s Hospital to partner with is Stryker. Stryker and one other North Texas medical facility teamed up on medical supplies and device take-back programs. Through Stryker's medical supply take-back program, the medical institution was able to save more than $5,430,000 between the fiscal year 2012 and May 2022. The appropriate reuse of resources and the donation of medical supplies that could not be collected through the take-back program were outlined in an institutional policy. The group selected to receive extra medical
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supplies was Project CURE. During the elderly hospital's shutdown, the North Texas Medical Center contributed more than 100 pallets of materials.
The Rotary Club of Dhaka Pathfinders launched the Blue Wrap Project Runway initiative
with Partners for World Health (PWH) in an exclusive collaboration for the goal of the medical mission. For the past six years, the Club and PWH have conducted primary health examinations and workshops on breast cancer awareness for the Medical Mission.
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References
Healthcare Recycling. dallascityhall.com/departments/sanitation/pages/healthcarerecycling.aspx.
Manager, Or, and Or Manager. “Creative Recycling: Blue Wrap, Bottle Caps, Thinking Outside the Box.” OR Manager, 24 Aug. 2022, www.ormanager.com/creative-recycling-blue-
wrap-bottle-caps-thinking-outside-the-box
.
Ogden, Jennifer. “Blue Wrap Recycling: It Can Be Done!” AORN Journal, vol. 89, no. 4, Wiley,
Apr. 2009, pp. 739–43. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aorn.2008.12.024
.
Sustainability Program - Children’s Health. www.childrens.com/footer/about/sustainability-
program
.