The Surgery Center of Fairfield County in Trumbull, Conn., completed a quality study examining how the center disposed of scalpels, needles, glass and hazardous waste.
Three things to know:
1. The surgery center found that the disposal bins for hazardous medical waste and sharp objects were being misused, with nonhazardous waste ending up in the bin for sharp objects when both types of waste should be kept separate.
2. The surgery center used disposal company Stericycle to dispose of hazardous waste and sharp objects. Before the study, the surgery center was paying over $2,000 to dispose of waste. Once it was properly sorted, the ASC negotiated with Stericycle to pick up 200 boxes of waste a year for $950 a month.
3. The surgery center's data show there was a 43.4 percent reduction in hazardous and sharp object waste generated by the facility in the months the surgery center removed non biomedical waste from its bins.
