08/12/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 08/12/2024 09:54
August 12, 2024
Based on our decades servicing healthcare providers we have witnessed their difficulties navigating and meeting regulatory and other waste requirements due to a lack of resources, incorrect stakeholder engagement, and ineffective communication. Today, those challenges are compounded by landfill and incinerator capacity concerns, increased regulatory scrutiny, and waste outlet options. Failure to include all appropriate stakeholders will leave gaps in your programs and planning, especially when considering all impacts along the lifecycle of waste.
Let us consider an example of regulated medical waste programs. If your organization sets up a program without engaging nursing/healthcare practitioners for feedback, it may not be designed to support the workflow needs of the staff and could lead to waste segregation issues. Improperly classifying and sorting waste may result in fines, violation notices, and rejected loads, which can disrupt a waste program and tarnish an organization's reputation.
Particularly with the increase in the challenges stated above, it is important to have a clear objective, engagement of all appropriate internal and external key stakeholders, and take into consideration the entire lifecycle of waste. These focus areas will help your organization more effectively navigate all requirements, understand needed resources, and implement clear and specific communication to support an impactful action plan and strategy.
Engaging the right stakeholders is foundational to the success of any waste management program, as it significantly influences the availability of resources and the effectiveness of communications. Stakeholders can be categorized into two main groups:
For example, frontline stakeholders might be those administering care and working with patients. Compliance stakeholders lead departments and design and implement policies to ensure clinicians and support services know how to handle regulated waste properly. These groups must work in tandem to ensure frontline needs are considered in policy and program design. At the same time, compliance stakeholders consider the larger needs from a compliance, environmental, population health, and fiscal perspective.
Stakeholders can be internal, such as those within your organization, and external, including partners such as Practice Green Health, Stericycle, other suppliers, industry organizations, or group purchasing organizations. Whether internal or external, it's important to involve key stakeholders with varied and applicable expertise. Examples include focused industry experts, value analysis, materials management, support services, clinicians, compliance, or sustainability stakeholders. This list can vary depending on your objective and need.
Engaging appropriate stakeholders will help your organization meet its objectives and goals, whether overarching improvement of community health or supporting pillars such as reducing cost, enhancing efficiencies, reducing environmental impact, or creating access to resources. Waste management can impact all of these areas; missegregation of waste can impact environmental and human health, add cost, and add additional process steps as well as negatively impact community well-being. Appropriate stakeholder engagement is key to reducing risk along every aspect of a material and waste's lifecycle.
If you have engaged the appropriate stakeholders, you will be better able to identify and build a case for needed resources. Resources can include more than just materials or products, for example:
Communication aligns stakeholders and resources to effectively deliver on any initiative through clear purpose, expectation, role responsibility definition, education, and individual and organizational impact and benefit. Without adequate communication between the correct stakeholders, the effectiveness and availability of resources and the development, implementation, and ongoing project management of an initiative can suffer. Organizations should think carefully about their communication modalities, especially in terms of the audiences, urgency, and topic. Appropriate stakeholder engagement can help drive effective communication for each audience.
Healthcare organizations can drive better waste management outcomes by establishing cross-functional working groups or committees dedicated to waste-related focus areas. These groups could concentrate on:
A comprehensive understanding of the waste lifecycle is critical for developing a compliant and truly sustainable program. This lifecycle encompasses:
Engaging appropriate stakeholders will help show the impacts of the waste's lifecycle and shape decisions on materials use and management, program design, clarification on needed resources, and communication methodology. This comprehensive approach facilitates the development and maintenance of a sustainable waste management program.
Many factors go into navigating healthcare waste, but when proper stakeholders are engaged, evaluation of the material lifecycle and clarification on needed resources will be better defined, allowing for clearer and more effective communication. Stericycle is here to help answer questions and provide helpful information and direction to help overcome your healthcare waste challenges. Watch this webinar for specific examples and to learn more.
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