The Dirty Secret to Greening Your ORs
You might have to go trash-picking to solve your red bag waste problems.
T
here's no telling what you'll find when you go dumpster diving
in the red bags in your ORs — only that you're likely to find
many things that don't belong: saline bottles, prep kits, dispos-
able supply wrappers and IV bags. Those were just a few of the items
that Kristen Perrego, RN, BSN, CNOR, fished out of the red bags at
Bayhealth Kent General Hospital in Dover, Del., as part of a project to
determine what percentage of red bag trash in her facility was non-
compliant with the OSHA definition of regulated waste.
Her most egregious finds during her random audits of the recepta-
cles? A large cardboard stapler box peeking out of the red bag trash
and protected health information. "The proper place for PHI is in the
shred bins," says Ms. Perrego, the clinical educator/preceptor of peri-
operative services.
Even when she staged this photo of her-
self going through the trash with a pair of
tongs, she found a plastic wrapper that
clearly doesn't belong. "Guess we'll need
more education after all!" she says.
The problem is not confined to OR nurs-
es who automatically double-bag the red
bag trash ("Check with your manufacturer
to determine if the thickness of the bags
allows for just a single layer to be used,"
says Ms. Perrego) and who still believe
that all trash generated after the incision
should go into the red bag trash.
Surgeons, she says, are just as guilty,
1 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • M A Y 2 0 1 6
Editor's Page
Dan O'Connor
• SCAVENGER HUNT Ms. Perrego found many items
that didn't belong in the red bag waste.
Kristen
Perrego,
RN,
BSN,
CNOR
