Submitted by Sarah Blaschko on January 30, 2014 - 8:29am
Last revised by Web Producer on March 13, 2014 - 12:43pm.
Idea Status:
Have all surgical pick lists reviewed to streamline equipment and disposables opened for OR cases. Have new hire attendings review pick lists rather than use old pick lists with items that may not be used. Consider having a competition for each surgical service to streamline pick lists and reduce the most amount of OR waste. Waste reduction can be calculated for one month after the pick lists have been updated with a pizza party and/or recognition in UCSF news - for the "greenest" surgical department
Consider using washable reusable sterile gowns for certain procedures - GU endoscopy, colorectal hemorrhoid cases, abscess I&Ds etc that are considered clean contaminated
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Comments
This is a fabulous idea and
This is a fabulous idea and thanks to Sarah for suggesting it. Surgical "pick lists" or "preference cards" guide OR staff of what equipment to pull for a particular surgery. Historically these have been infrequently reviewed, and the differences between providers who perform the same surgeries have not been well studied. In Urology they have had great success in standardizing their preference cards with a reduction in costs. This has the potential to be a great way to encourage surgical involvement in cost reduction and standardization of necessary equipment and disposables. As a member of the Health Technologies Assessment Panel, I'd be happy to contribute to these efforts.
This is a fabulous idea and
This is a fabulous idea and thanks to Sarah for suggesting it. Surgical "pick lists" or "preference cards" guide OR staff of what equipment to pull for a particular surgery. Historically these have been infrequently reviewed, and the differences between providers who perform the same surgeries have not been well studied. In Urology they have had great success in standardizing their preference cards with a reduction in costs. This has the potential to be a great way to encourage surgical involvement in cost reduction and standardization of necessary equipment and disposables. As a member of the Health Technologies Assessment Panel, I'd be happy to contribute to these efforts.
Dollars and Save Earth = GO
Dollars and Save Earth = GO GREEN!
Re-establish OR recycling using several ways of sorting Surgical Items:
1. UNISOURCE - Blue Wrap is the number trash collected from the OR; UNISOURCE is willing to pick up blue wrap bi-weekly
2. MEDSHARE - this company picks up open but not used surgical items for third world countries
3. Paper and plastic bottles/ hard plastic from packaging materials - recycling Recology supports this
4. UCSF to send open letter to manufacturers to stop providing instruction pamphlets and provide website instead; encourage them to decrease unnecessary packaging material.
5. Basins and Pitchers should be metal/reusable not disposable plastic
6. Collect all OR grounding pads and extract cooper wire from it!
7. COMPOST - provide metal carts in each lounge to collect food scraps from staff to be sent back to cafeteria and compost all paper towels in bathroom.
8. Standardize OR pack to a minumum.
9. Decrease plastic bag use.