becoming the best practice and the gold standard for getting rid of
controlled substances, and should be used in every facility, according
to Ms. New. If those traces of fentanyl that led to the nurse's downfall
had been handled differently, she might still be working in the career
she loved. "Staff could have squirted the leftover amount into a dispos-
al receptacle," says Ms. New. "The nurse would have found only empty
syringes, making her ability to divert much less likely."
It's also important to ensure that patients properly dispose of the
controlled substances they're prescribed after surgery. Ms. New rec-
ommends that you supply patients with drug deactivation disposal
pouches at discharge. The pouches, which employ carbon to render
controlled substances inert, can simply be thrown into household
trash.
Grinding away
There is a relatively new device on the market that can sterilize med-
ical waste on site at your facility. The device, which is about the size
of a standard office copy machine, sterilizes and grinds up medical
waste into a confetti-like nontoxic garbage that requires no incinera-
tion or other treatment. Up to 15 pounds of sharps, containers and
other eligible waste get poured into the top of the machine. A 30-min-
utes cycle of 280-degree steam creates 38 pounds of PSI, which kills
all pathogens. Then the grinding begins, which takes another half-
hour.
"It comes out in a white trash bag and gets thrown in the regular
trash," says Ahn Marie Day, RN, BSN, CNOR, administrator at
Wentworth Surgery Center in Somersworth, N.H. The facility has had
the device on site for about 2 years.
She says her facility's grinder is stationary, but newer mobile units
can be rolled to different locations throughout a facility. The device
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