Summary of the Initiative. Free Essay

Healthcare institution is a critical environment that could be messy when proper methods of waste disposal are not installed. This is due to the large number of waste that hospitals usually release from their day-to-day activities. The red bag waste reduction technique is an alternative to the previous waste disposal measures such as Autoclaving. Like other healthcare organizations, Inova Hospital is not exclusive. It thus requires a Red-bag reduction strategy to help them manage their large quantities of waste, improve the quality of patient outcomes, and reduce the overall cost of treatment. The term is synonymous with regulated medical waste, which is often defined differently in various states. However, it refers to medical items contaminated with body fluids, which can transmit infections. The items include a blood-soaked gown, tubing, drain systems, a veil, and the suction canister.

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The sustainability initiative of using Red-bag waste is more reliable because it will enable Inova Hospital to dispose of the medical wastes and solid wastes separately. Medical wastes, including dangerous treatment equipment and other blood-related body fluids, will be disposed of in the Red-bags. In contrast, the solid wastes are disposed of in reusable containers. The stated objectives would be achieved when healthcare integrates with other partners to form partnerships and collaborations. For instance, community leaders, hospital leadership directors, volunteers, and other financial institutions are included in the initiative to foster the plans and realize the goals more straightforwardly.

Finally, the initiative would implement the use of the following strategies to help in better realization of sustainable needs:

• Measuring the baseline or the number of hospital's wastes
• Educating the employees on how to use the Red-bags for disposing of the medical scraps
• The Red-bags or containers should be placed with the utmost care to reduce infection cases through the close interactions of people around the vessel (PREMIER (2013)
• For these reasons, the initiative is accurate and full of definite promises, that will generally improve the conditions of healthcare, not only to the patients but also the organization and related team.

Short-term and Long-term Sustainable Needs of the Initiative

The goals and objectives of the initiative are subdivided into two categories: short-term and long-term needs. However, the general purpose that can also be categorized as a long-term need is for the Inova hospital to successfully implement a waste reduction project and realize the prospective benefits. The short-term needs of the initiative include: to obtain many Red-bag containers that are sufficient for managing the entire organization, without imminent shortages; to train the healthcare employees in the hospital on the measures, policies, and steps of using and disposing of the Red-bag containers; collecting the necessary financial aid for the initialization of the initiative and to measure the accurate volume of medical wastes to help in determining what amount of Red-bags are needed in approximate.

Besides, the Inova Hospital-regulated medical waste initiative would also aim to achieve long-term needs that will help determine the overall and successful implementation of the program or initiative. The first is to increase the quality of patient outcomes within the hospital set up. Advancing on the class will attract more patients and thus make the hospital to gain regional acceptance through its stable, sustainable competitive advantage.

The other sustainable need is to reduce the costs associated with waste disposal by encouraging the hospital to adapt to the use of Red-bags was for waste disposal. Nabivouni and Franchetti (2019) stated that, because using a regulated medical waste mechanism ensured a prior treatment of the wastes before they finally reach the landfills, the overall disposal costs would be less compared to a scenario where regular garbage have been used, as the scraps reached the dumps in the form of a minute of solid and medical blood-fluidly wastes. The third sustainable need is to develop a project within the hospital, that helps in waste reduction by using Red-bags for disposal.

Required Resources for the Enactment of Initiative

Meanwhile, to successfully enact this initiative, Inova Hospital will have to acquire some crucial resources to promote a smoothened implementation process with no bottlenecks underway. In the beginning, the hospital has to obtain enough Red-bags waste, buy protective gear that people use to access or hold the bags, and also funds for training the employees to adjust and adapt the transition from regular garbage to the usage of ordinary medical waste. The leadership of Inova Hospital will also have to prepare funds for making salaries to the workers who would be involved in using the Red-bag wastes to improve the waste disposal schemes. Besides, the stakeholders will have to purchase stands both for the bags and containers, which will be holding solid wastes to avoid mix-ups.

The hospital would also serve for the vehicles, fuels, and electricity bills and also do an installation of a stable water source, depending on the volumes of medical waste released by the hospital. Successful implementation of the initiative will also fail if the leadership and relevant stakeholders do not consider purchasing enough pieces of land, which would help in hosting the proposed waste reduction project in the hospital. Finally, healthcare has to obtain items such as wheelbarrows to facilitate easy transportation of Red-bags waste from the hospital to the disposal zones.

Obstacles Associated with the Initiative

Despite the ambitions and needs of the initiative in Inova Hospital, the goals would only be realized when the implementation occurs successfully. Nevertheless, the following challenges must be addressed, for practical completion of the plan, that is free from any shortages and problems. First, employees might take longer to learn and adapt to the newly proposed methods of waste reduction. If such happens, the leadership and the entire board of directors within the hospital might suffer financially, as it will be against the plans and schedule for the initiative. For instance, some workers may hold wrong perceptions and views that the Red-bags waste is smaller in size; thus, the disposal process may get delayed (Stonemetz et al., 2017). The problem of changing to the new method is the major challenge that the hospital will have to encounter, although another minor challenge is: the high cost of purchasing the bags and financing the whole process in the beginning, before the organization begins to benefit, which is a long-term need.

Benefits of the Initiative

The primary objective that Inova Hospital will obtain from this proposed initiative is cost savings. As earlier observed, the hospital is currently implementing the autoclaving method as the means of disposing of waste. The technique is expensive at a rate of approximately ten times more than the regulated medical waste method. The significant difference between the costs is that the regulated medical waste strategy involves medical waste treatment before the disposal stage. In contrast, with autoclaving, all wastes are taken to landfills for disposal (Weber et al. 2019).

Failure to treat the waste before disposal results in a mixture of solid materials like bottles and diapers, which combine with the medical wastes, hence raising the final disposal costs. Most importantly, the regulated medical waste initiative will improve the efficiency in the hospital. Reports obtained from the studies indicate that Red-bags are usually impervious and rigid enough to withstand any leakages and ripping out of it (Puangmanee & Jearanai, 2019).

Besides, using the Red-bag waste initiative improves the quality of health care on patients are minimizes the rates of infections through medical wastes such as sharp needles. For this reason, it is easier to contain patients by reducing the overall rates of readmissions back to the hospitals as a result of infections. Finally, it is interesting that the benefits of this initiative may only be witnessed internally by patients and organizations, but also by society members, by having safety protection of the public workers, against infections by the medical wastes from the Inova Hospital. Environmentally, the initiative will conserve the environment and make it fresh and lively by having breathing air and clean water that is free from contaminations by the released disposal wastes.

This is because the wastes are first treated within the healthcare organization before they are released to the disposal zones, a fact that will extensively reduce the rates of pollution. Moreover, the institution would even benefit highly if the plan of establishing a project within the hospital is done accurately. Finally, using the Red-bag waste method for disposing of waste reduces the possibility of patients getting into contact with medical wastes, including body fluids and used syringes.

References

Nabiyouni, N., & Franchetti, M. J. (2019). Applying Lean Six Sigma methods to improve infectious waste management in hospitals. International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, 11(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJSSCA.2019.098706

PREMIER, (2013). Inova health system a model of environmental sustainability. http://www.premiersafetyinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Inova-Case-Study-August-2013.pdf

Puangmanee, S., & Jearanai, M. (2019). Healthcare waste management: A case study of health-promoting hospitals. Waste Management and the Environment IX, 231, 389. https://doi.org/10.2495/WM180361

Stonemetz, J., Pham, J. C., Necochea, A. J., McGready, J., Hody, R. E., & Martinez, E. A. (2011). Reduction of regulated medical waste using lean sigma results in financial gains for the hospital. Anesthesiology Clinics, 29(1), 145-152.

Weber, G., Cabras, I., Calaf-Forn, M., Puig-Ventosa, I., & D'Alisa, G. (2019). Promoting waste degrowth and environmental justice at a local level: The Case of Unit-Pricing Schemes in Spain. Ecological economics, 156, 306-317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.09.024