Outpatient Surgery Magazine - Subscribers

OR Excellence Awards 2015 - September 2015 - Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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of trash that is generated, save money by investing in reusable and reprocessed supplies, and become an organization that leaves a posi- tive environmental footprint in the community." Cutting back on disposables Cutting back on the amount of garbage the surgery department pro- duces is one of the top ways Lakewood helps the surrounding envi- ronment. One of the initiatives the 25-bed hospital employs to go green while saving green is a thorough reprocessing program for sin- gle-use devices. According to Ms. Witucki, the hospital tries to reprocess as many single-use items as it can. This includes devices like trocars, arthro- scopic shavers and burrs, saw blades, laparoscopic instruments, mani- folds, tourniquets, sequential compression devices and more. "If the company will take it, we send it," she says. While some may hesitate at the thought of reprocessed SUDs, Ms. Witucki says it's all about finding the right fit for your facility. When the hospital recently switched reprocessing companies, Ms. Witucki says they first asked the new company to come in and explain, in detail, how their operation worked and what their standards were. That helped ease everyone's mind, she says. "They have a policy that if you get a reprocessed item back and it fails, the company takes responsibility for that product," she says. "That was comforting to know." While the program helps keep disposable tools out of landfills, there are significant financial benefits as well, says Ms. Witucki. She notes that since the hospital began reprocessing its fluid waste dis- posal system manifolds, they've saved almost $15,000 a year. Surgeons and staff are now on board with the idea of using more affordable products of equal quality instead of new, expensive ones. 9 9 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 5 | O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y . N E T

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