Reducing regulated medical waste: A roadmap for process improvement

Introduction

The United States is a major producer of medical waste. While the recommended standard percentage of Regulated Medical Waste (RMW) in health care facilities is 15% or less of overall waste, up to 70% of healthcare waste is disposed of as RMW, a third of which comes from the operating room.

Methods

We implemented a month long process change in the operating rooms at a high volume, urban hospital, with the goal of reducing the amount of operating room RMW production. This intervention involved education of staff and reducing RMW receptacles to one per room. Additionally, we created a roadmap to guide scalable implementation of this process change.

Results

Following the intervention, the median amount of RMW produced decreased significantly, from 19.11 tons to 7.44 tons per month. The percentage of monthly RMW of total waste decreased from 39.8% to 16.61%. The median cost of RMW disposal dropped from $17,537.52, or 77.06% of total waste cost to $6401.14, or 49.21% per month following the intervention. We also found a decrease in the median monthly total cost of waste disposal from $23,049.33 to $13,354.94.

Conclusion

RMW can be reduced by process changes that alter the convenience of operating room waste disposal. These changes have the potential to reduce healthcare’s carbon footprint, save thousands of dollars in disposal fees, and pave the way for other earth friendly initiatives.