Any healthcare facility or clinical establishment needs to have a medical waste management strategy in place. As well as ensuring compliance with the strict regulations that govern clinical waste disposal, implementing a comprehensive medical waste management strategy will help to keep your staff and patients safe. With this in mind, take a look at these five ways to streamline medical waste management and optimize your in-house processes:
1. Work with a Medical Waste Management Service Provider
Finding the right suppliers and service providers is essential to your commercial success, but it’s also important when it comes to regulatory compliance. By finding the right medical waste management service provider, you can access the specialist services you require at any time. From regular collections to ad hoc waste disposal, partnering with a medical waste disposal company will ensure that you can always access the custom services you need.
2. Educate Staff
Dealing with clinical waste safely is something that all healthcare professionals are taught early on in their careers. However, non-medical staff will also need to be educated about how medical waste should be processed. By ensuring that all personnel receives regular training, you can keep your staff up to date with the latest safety regulations and make sure they’re aware of how your medical waste management strategy is being implemented.
3. Place Containers in Strategic Locations
When regular trash is placed in medical waste containers, it artificially inflates your operating costs and can potentially mean that clinical waste needs to be processed more than once. Similarly, if different types of medical waste are incorrectly placed in the same container, this can have the same effect.
By placing medical waste containers in strategic locations, you can reduce the risk of staff errors and ensure that waste receptacles are used appropriately. Similarly, avoid putting clinical waste containers where patients can access them to ensure that they’re not used for regular trash.
4. Select the Right Equipment
While you’re awaiting medical waste disposal collection services, clinical waste will remain on site in containers. However, it’s important to ensure you have the appropriate containers and that they’re easy for staff to access. By choosing secure clinical waste containers with robotic washing processes, for example, you can increase on-site safety, guarantee regulatory compliance, and provide staff with the equipment they need.
5. Carry Out Waste Audits
A waste audit gives you access to the critical data you need to optimize your medical waste management strategy. By tracking the amount and type of clinical waste that accumulates on a daily basis, for example, you can determine whether additional services or equipment is required. When you can make data-driven decisions to enhance your existing strategy, you have the opportunity to reduce costs and improve outcomes.
Make Medical Waste Management a Top Priority
If you want to remain compliant with the relevant regulations, it’s essential to make clinical waste management a top priority. In addition to this, a streamlined medical waste management strategy will enable your facility to operate with increased efficiency and enhanced safety, which is beneficial for patients and staff alike.