/ en Mon, 28 Apr 2025 03:12:17 -0500 Tue, 05 Nov 24 06:00:00 -0600 /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2024-11-05-takeda-and-boston-medical-center-partner-cut-health-care-emissions <div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-8"><p><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Takeda-and-Boston-Medical-Center-Partner-to-Cut-Health-Care-Emissions.png" data-entity-uuid="9f871a29-2cd7-4ca3-a8e2-bcd571da260b" data-entity-type="file" alt="AHA Market Scan Takeda and Boston Medical Center Partner to Cut Health Care Emissions. Two smokestacks billowing smoke with a smoggy sunset in the background." width="100%" height="100%"></p><p><a href="https://www.takeda.com/en-us/newsroom/news-releases/2024/innovative-collaboration-with-boston-medical-center/" target="_blank" title="Takeda: Takeda and Boston Medical Center Announce Innovative Collaboration to Help Tackle Decarbonization Across Health Care Ecosystem">Takeda</a> and <a href="https://www.bmc.org/sustainability" target="_blank" title="Boston Medical Center: Sustainability Is Healthcare">Boston Medical Center</a> (BMC) have launched a strategic partnership aimed at developing innovative solutions to reduce hard-to-abate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within the health care sector.</p><p>This collaboration focuses on addressing GHG emissions caused by the disposal of regulated medical waste, including pharmaceutical packaging and single-use plastics, which pose some of the most complex environmental challenges in the industry. By working together, Takeda and BMC not only aim to reduce these emissions, but also to share the insights and solutions with other health care organizations to encourage widespread adoption and drive industrywide progress in decarbonization.</p><p>The partnership’s key objective is to identify, pilot and disseminate effective decarbonization strategies that can be implemented by other health care organizations seeking to lower their GHG. This will involve collaborating with stakeholders such as suppliers, waste management vendors and packaging providers to establish new best practices that are both practical and scalable.</p><p>As part of this initiative, BMC will conduct waste audits in critical clinical areas to identify major sources of emissions and explore new technologies aimed at reducing emissions from regulated medical waste disposal, particularly pharmaceutical packaging. BMC, known for its leadership in sustainability, has received multiple <a href="https://www.bmc.org/news/boston-medical-center-named-top-25-hospital-nation-environmental-excellence-practice" target="_blank" title="Boston Medical Center: Boston Medical Center Named a Top 25 Hospital in the Nation for Environmental Excellence by Practice Greenhealth">Practice Greenhealth Top 25 Environmental Excellence Awards</a>.</p><p>Among its many environmental initiatives, BMC is the first hospital in the country to use a <a href="https://www.bmc.org/news/boston-medical-center-health-system-announces-first-nation-program-clean-power-prescription" target="_blank" title="Boston Medical Center: Boston Medical Center Health System Announces First-In-The-Nation Program: Clean Power Prescription">rooftop solar array to provide energy bill credits to patients</a> facing energy insecurity. The hospital also has built <a href="https://www.bmc.org/nourishing-our-community/rooftop-farm" target="_blank" title="Boston Medical Center: Rooftop Farm">two rooftop farms</a> that supply fresh produce for its food pantry, patient meals and local community organizations. Additionally, BMC opened the nation’s first <a href="https://www.bmc.org/news/boston-medical-center-announces-opening-new-inpatient-behavioral-health-center-brockton" target="_blank" title="Boston Medical Center: Boston Medical Center Announces Opening of New Inpatient Behavioral Health Center in Brockton">net-zero, energy-ready behavioral health facility</a> and was the first nonprofit health care organization in the U.S. to issue <a href="https://www.bmc.org/news/boston-medical-center-issues-first-sustainability-bonds-us-not-profit-health-care-organization" target="_blank" title="Boston Medical Center: Boston Medical Center Issues the First Sustainability Bonds in the U.S. for a Not-For-Profit Health Care Organization">sustainability bonds</a>, raising $232 million for campus renovations to enhance patient care.</p><p>Through this collaboration, Takeda and BMC aim to foster a culture of sustainability across the health care industry, helping organizations of all sizes to reduce their environmental impact while improving patient and community health outcomes.</p></div><div class="col-md-4"><p><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" width="721" height="130" data-entity- type="file" class="align-center"></a></p><p><a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png" data-entity-uuid data-entity-type alt width="360" height="300"></a></p></div></div></div>.field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } Tue, 05 Nov 2024 06:00:00 -0600 Operations Related to Waste Management /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2023-08-01-has-time-come-medical-waste-audit-your-organization <div class="container"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-md-8"> <p><img alt="Has the Time Come for a Medical Waste Audit at Your Organization? A clinician's hand puts a mask into a container full of medical waste." data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="62d30518-5b98-4337-aa73-8c99d90bea25" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Has-the-Time-Come-for-a-Medical-Waste-Audit-at-Your-Organization.png" width="620" height="381"></p> <p>Health care organizations and medical professionals have shown a strong interest in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.</p> <p>Integrating sustainability into all aspects of a hospital’s mission takes focused commitment across the organization, as Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) leaders can attest. Two years ago, MGH launched its <a href="https://www.massgeneral.org/environment-and-health" target="_blank" title="Massachusetts General Hospital: Center for Environment and Health landing page.">Center for the Environment and Health</a>.</p> <p>The center integrates sustainability into MGH’s clinical, research and educational activities and is designed to improve the environmental health of the hospital and the health and well-being of the communities it serves. The organization is paring down its fossil fuel use, composting food waste, <a href="https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/01/10/mass-general-hospital-report-cards-climate-change-anesthesia" target="_blank" title="WBUR: Mass General tries performance reports to cut greenhouse gas use in anesthesia">changing anesthesiology practices</a> and recycling the blue wrap used to protect sterilized surgical instruments before they enter the operating room.</p> <p>Two hospitalists at MGH saw firsthand just how much waste is generated daily in even a relatively small area like the 21st floor of Phillips House, a 20-single room inpatient area at MGH. Two years ago, they looked on as the cleaning staff conducted a 24-hour waste audit.</p> <p>The floor’s refuse items were weighed, sorted and catalogued as part of an effort to reduce plastic use. The audit and the doctors’ reaction to what they saw were chronicled in a recent <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2023/07/20/waste-climate-change-mass-general-hospitals-health-care/" target="_blank" title="STAT: Mass. General totes up its waste in a move to tackle climate change">Stat News report</a>.</p> <p>The final totals showed that more than 370 pounds of waste was produced that day — most of it plastic. In all, plastic waste amounted to almost 18 pounds per patient in a single day. The greenhouse gas emitted to make and dispose of the waste identified in the audit was the equivalent of driving 350 miles, charging 65,000 smartphones or burning 269 kilograms of coal, based on Environmental Protection Agency models.</p> <p>Health care audits are an increasingly popular way to gauge exactly what kind of waste hospitals produce, notes a 2022 study of audits led by Jonathan Slutzman, M.D., who led the development of MGH’s Center for the Environment and Health. He calls waste audits “the gateway drug for sustainability science” and says they aren’t hard to do but require careful coordination across many hospitals. The effort, he says, can give hospitals the tools to make changes.</p> <p>The larger aim, he says, is to work with vendors, manufacturers and regulators so that “the easy practice is the right practice.”</p> <h2><span>Learn More</span></h2> <p>The journal Waste Management & Research earlier this year published a systematic review of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9925917/" target="_blank" title="National Library of Medicine: Waste audits in healthcare: A systematic review and description of best practices">best practices for waste audits</a> in health care.</p> </div> <div class="col-md-4"> <p><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" data-entity- data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" type="file" class="align-center"></a></p> <a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img alt data-entity-type data-entity-uuid src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png"></a></div> </div> </div> .field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } Tue, 01 Aug 2023 06:00:00 -0500 Operations Related to Waste Management /news/headline/2022-06-21-agencies-update-guidance-handling-monkeypox-waste <p>Federal agencies have updated their<a href="https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/transporting-infectious-substances/planning-guidance-handling-category-solid-waste"> guidance</a> for handling Category A solid waste, including waste that may be contaminated with monkeypox virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2022/06-21-2022-lab-advisory-Interagency_Partners_Update_Planning_Guidance_Disposal_Shipment_Material_Suspected_Contain_Monkeypox_Virus.html">laboratories</a> yesterday. According to CDC, the current U.S. monkeypox outbreak has so far involved only the West African clade of the virus, which can be classified below Category A under the Hazardous Materials Regulations.</p> Wed, 22 Jun 2022 14:08:52 -0500 Operations Related to Waste Management