I found out this year that a local hospital system, run by Ascension, had Green Teams and worked with Practice Greenhealth in only two of the multiple hospitals in the system. When I asked, I was told that Ascension only had Green Teams in hospitals that were directly connected with medical schools. How does this make any sense?

I challenge each of you, whether you work in a large hospital or a small dental practice, a veterinary hospital or an outpatient clinic, to make sure your organization has a Green Team. You can decide for yourselves what priorities your particular Green Team has, but my suggestion is to start with decreasing healthcare waste! If you sterilize equipment, why not move from blue wrap to sterilizing in rigid containers? According to AORN,

“Placing trays of instruments to be sterilized into sealable stainless steel or anodized aluminum containers provides an assurance of infection prevention, since there’s no worry that the outer protection will tear as it’s shelved, pulled or transported. You’re also eliminating the staffing time and supply cost of blue wrap, not to mention the disposal cost and environmental impact of the waste it generates.”

Once you have your Green Team set up, you can use it for many projects, not just eliminating some forms of healthcare waste. If your clinic, hospital, or other site doesn’t have a Green Team yet, now’s your chance to start one!