St. Barnabas Hospital Earns Award For Keeping Medical Waste Out Of Landfills

The RWJBarnabas Health system – which includes the Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston - has received a “Gold Healthy Hospital Award” for diverting 53,588 pounds of medical waste from landfills and reducing its supply costs by more than $2 million.

According to RWJBarnabas Health, the designation from Stryker’s Sustainability Solutions is reserved for select hospitals that “demonstrate outstanding leadership in health care sustainability and overall hospital quality through single-use device (SUD) reprocessing.” Among such SUD devices are pulse oximetry, tourniquet cuffs, blood pressure cuffs and compression hoses.

In 2016, RWJBarnabas’ reprocessing program in its 11 acute care hospitals successfully diverted 53,588 pounds of medical waste from landfills and reduced its supply costs by $2,172,990. The financial savings were an increase of 28% over 2015, allowing additional funds to be redirected into key patient care initiatives. In the first six months of 2017, the numbers have nearly doubled, RWJBarnabas stated.

“RWJBarnabas Health is extremely proud of this green initiative,” stated Barry Ostrowsky, president and CEO of RWJBarnabas Health. “It has a significant environmental impact by keeping tens of thousands of pounds in medical waste from landfills through safe reprocessing under Federal Drug Administration approval.”

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