Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine's environmental efforts are multipronged, including saving expired devices for trainings and fine-tuning the flow of anesthesia gases.
The six-hospital system has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2042, Penn Medicine said in a March 29 post. To achieve its goal, 70% of the system's power will be from solar energy, and a no-print initiative is growing.
Individualized projects are also underway. At Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, clinical nurse educator Melissa Esterly, MSN, RN, has been collecting expired and open, unused supplies for two years. The devices cannot be used for patients, but nurses bring the items to Ms. Esterly's classes to reduce waste.
At Lancaster (Pa.) General Hospital, single-use devices get a refreshed life after going in collection bins, which are sent to Stryker to dismantle, sterilize and reassemble. The hospital can then buy the refurbished items at a discount.
Penn Medicine also fine-tunes the flow of anesthesia gases, which are greenhouse gases, and works to reduce "red bag" waste, or materials with blood and bodily fluids.