manager.
• Going green. Surgery generates large amounts of waste. In some
hospitals, ORs account for 20% to 33% of the facility's total waste, and
as much as 60% of it is regulated medical waste, according to Practice
Greenhealth, an organization that works to reduce healthcare's envi-
ronmental footprint.
Closed fluid waste management systems greatly reduce how much
regulated medical waste is generated by an OR, says Kaeleigh
Sheehan, the manager of Practice Greenhealth's Green the OR
Initiative. Consider you'll no longer dispose of thousands of single-
use fluid collection canisters and the residual materials from chemi-
cal solidifying agents in red bag waste. By eliminating fluid through
the sewer system, you send less medical waste to landfills and incin-
erators.
• Cost savings. While there's a significant upfront cost to purchas-
6 4 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
dice to try to achieve cost savings."
5. Involve staff
Get input from the OR staff about the user-friendliness of the
options you're considering, from how easy they are to set up before
cases to the practicality of the fluid disposal process.
Listen and involve everyone, but be prepared to make the final
call. Staff might think more about ease of use than the other host
of benefits improved fluid waste management provides, and sur-
geons might look at a new fluid-capture method as one more
disruption they have to deal with during surgery.
"You'll get it from all directions," says Ms. Borello-Barnett.
"That's just the way it is."
— Adam Taylor
