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Broward Health goes green to improve community health and safety of staff, patients, visitors

Media Contacts: 

Cathy Meyer/Office: 954-831-2732 

For Immediate Release 

Ft. Lauderdale, FL – Broward Health is pleased to announce its commitment to minimizing environmental impact and making good decisions for the benefit of community health and safety by implementing the Pharmaceutical Waste Compliance service and the Sharps Management System using Bio Systems reusable containers by Stericycle Inc.  

These services place Broward Health ahead of the curve with green initiatives as several states begin to legislate “no flush” laws, while leading the trend toward reusable sharps container systems in the healthcare environment.

Hospitals are becoming increasingly aware of their role within and responsibilities toward the environment. A recent study by the University of Chicago Hospitals and published in JAMA1 found that the American healthcare sector accounts for 8% of the U.S. carbon footprint. The analysis found that hospitals are by far the largest contributor of carbon emissions in the healthcare sector. The need to address both air and water quality issues is imperative as the number of drugs in the marketplace keeps growing as do carbon emissions if steps like these are not taken by healthcare administrators.

As hospitals continue to explore best environmental practices, “green teams” seek ways to improve facility and health systems’ practices.  Few tools exist that specifically help determine a hospital’s environmental impact.  The average 200-bed acute care hospital can divert more than 13,000 pounds of CO2 or the equivalent of 679 gallons of gasoline. Many larger hospitals have larger emissions to manage.  

A tool called the Carbon Footprint Estimator2 is designed to help U.S. hospitals determine the amount of plastic and cardboard containers, and resulting CO2 emissions that they would keep out of the environment by switching the facility’s use of disposable sharps containers to reusable containers. Each reusable container saves the equivalent of 600 from later going to landfills.  

Since 1986, the Stericycle Sharps Management System using Bio Systems reusable containers has kept more than 79 million sharps containers out of landfills.  Using this system, Broward Health has seen 15,093 pounds of carbon emissions prevented from 25,418 pounds of plastic and 2,004 pounds of cardboard diverted from landfills since November 2009. This is the equivalent of not burning 777 gallons of gasoline*.

Hospitals are also examining the ways pharmaceutical waste is being disposed.  Between 1993 and 2009, more than 1,500 drugs were approved by the FDA.   The 1999-2000 U.S. Geological Survey found 80% of streams sampled had at least one waste contaminant1. Waste contaminants included pharmaceutical drugs such as endocrine disrupters and antibiotics. In a similar study in 2008, an Associated Press survey reported a detection of pharmaceuticals in drinking water that serves 41 million Americans.   

Hospitals, which are major users of pharmaceuticals, are seeking assistance to effectively manage pharmaceutical waste.  The process can be complex. Pharmaceutical waste must be characterized, segregated, and transported. The disposal must also be documented. 

Many states are passing legislation. In Illinois beginning January, 2010 the Safe Pharmaceutical Disposal Act, began prohibiting the disposal of unused medication into a public wastewater collection system or septic system. Knowing legislation is likely to increase, Broward Health is ahead of the compliance curve by using Stericycle’s Pharmaceutical Waste Compliance Service. 

“Each year, more regulations, especially at the state level, are enacted to require appropriate segregation, transportation and treatment of all healthcare waste. We want to be more than compliant. We want to keep staff, patients and the community safe,” said Art Grissom, Broward General’s Chief Support Services Officer.

Broward Health recently won the 2009 Broward County Board of Commissioners Emerald Award for Pollution Prevention, Hazardous Waste Reduction and Recycling. “We have earned this recognition the last three years now based on our efforts to reduce and eliminate pollution and waste while increasing efficient and sustainable use of resources at the source,” said Broward Health’s Safety Coordinator Patricia O'Rourke. “We are proud of our efforts and are enthusiastically looking ahead at the new programs we are implementing to help keep our environment and community clean and safe.”

Broward Health, providing service for more than 50 years, is a nationally recognized system offering world-class health care services to our neighbors in South Florida. One of the 10 largest public health systems in the nation, Broward Health includes Broward General Medical Center, North Broward Medical Center, Imperial Point Medical Center, Coral Springs Medical Center, Chris Evert Children’s Hospital, Broward Health Weston and more than 30 facilities of the Community Health Services and Broward Health Physician Group. For more information visit www.BrowardHealth.org. 

*Source: www.stericycle.com/carbon-footprint-estimator 

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