Healthcare industries and nursing homes are in a desperate need for waste management facilities and programs. The increased medical waste makes it necessary for the organization to come up with disposal programs in order to enhance proper patients’ care. The main wastes in nursing homes are the sharp objects and the “Red Bag” whose disposal is governed by strict laws and regulations that healthcare organizations are aware of both at national and local levels. Red bag material is always a high cost for the nursing homes ( Patan & Mathur, 2015) . This problem is the reason I choose the nursing home as my setting and Red bag waste reduction as my sustainability initiative. I believe that when proper management is carried out Red bag waste can be significantly reduced and therefore improving patient care and reducing pollution as well as costs.
A typical nursing home must be made of five major organizational structures which are operations director, administrative staff, support staff, chief nursing officers, and a nursing manager. The roles of the operations director are: ensuring that the objectives in a nursing home are met, sometimes the director is the executive administrator in charge of all the staff, he/she is the face of the home, and he/she has the role of procuring external funding and donations. The administrative staff in a nursing home is in particular the smallest department but handling a wide range of roles ( Lage et.al, 2015) . Their major tasks include, financial matter like taxes and payroll, ordering medical and office supplies, and front desk management. The support staff is majorly responsible with the basic upkeep of the facility and residents. Their roles include garbage disposal, ensuring that facilities such as bathrooms, offices, residential areas as well as public area are clean and also prepare meals in the nursing home. The chief nursing officer is in charge of all employees that directly take care of the patient. He/she works in co-ordination with the operations director to ensure that the patients’ needs are met. The nursing officer also ensures that all nursing standards are upheld. Nursing managers have a significantly easier task compared to the nursing officer. Essentially, each manager is assigned one floor and is responsible of ensuring proper coordination between nurses in order to effectively give care to the residents ( Lage, 2015) . The most important department in a nursing home is the direct care givers. The staff is responsible of giving direct comfort and medical care to the residents. They ensure that the patients are taking their medicines properly, comfortable, and clean. The staff consists of licensed nurses, certified assistants and registered nurses. All these departments work together with an aim of meeting the residents’ needs and maintaining the facilities.
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Waste disposal, particularly the red bag waste is common in a nursing home. Red waste includes items soaked with blood, bandages, gauze, specimen cups, and fluid contaminated items among many other items ( Patan & Mathur, 2015) . Red bag waste disposal is regulated by strict government laws and regulation to ensure proper handling of this biohazardous waste. The major disadvantage in Red bag disposal is the high costs and the risk involved if it is not properly disposed.
The main objective in the red waste reduction sustainability initiative is to reduce the costs of its disposal and to protect the staff and the residents from diseases. The increased red waste is due to the trash put in this package. Often times the red bags are found to contain dressings, adult diapers, tubes and device packaging ( Pandey et.al, 2016) . There are several ways that this problem could be reduced. Doctors who do not understand what the contents of the red bag should be should be educated. Additionally, proper segregation of the waste should be done prior to disposal just to ensure that the containment is as per the regulations.
The setting of this study is a nursing home and the sustainability initiative is red bag waste reduction. Nursing homes are organized into different departments performing different functions. The employees work together to ensure that the residents’ needs are properly and effectively met. The increased red bag waste is due the trash put in this bag due to lack of information on what should be contained in this bags as well as lack of waste segregation before disposal. The main objective of reducing the red bag waste is to reduce the cost and protect the residents from diseases. The two major ways to achieve these objectives are educating the doctors and waste segregation.
References
Lage, D. E., Rusinak, D., Carr, D., Grabowski, D. C., & Ackerly, D. C. (2015). Creating a network of high‐quality skilled nursing facilities: Preliminary data on the postacute care quality improvement experiences of an accountable care organization. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society , 63 (4), 804-808.
PAndey, A., AhujA, S., MAdAn, M., & ASthAnA, A. K. (2016). Bio-Medical Waste Managment in a Tertiary Care Hospital: An Overview. Journal of clinical and diagnostic research: JCDR , 10 (11), DC01.
Patan, S., & Mathur, P. (2015). Assessment of biomedical waste management in government hospital of Ajmer city-a study. International Journal of Research in Pharmacy & Science , 5 (1).
