AHA Endorses Waste Management

The AHA Solutions unit of the American Hospital Association has endorsed the environmental services of WM Healthcare Solutions Inc., a subsidiary of Waste Management Inc., Houston.

WM Healthcare offers a suite of services to manage the waste streams of health care organizations, such as recyclables, medical and pharmaceutical waste, confidential documents, general and hazardous waste, and construction and demolition materials.

But the company also offers a range of database services to help providers better manage and reduce their waste streams, says Ron Pierce, president of WM Healthcare. The company can collect, analyze and compare data on the safety, cost, regulatory compliance, and environmental impact of various waste streams. Dashboard technology enables a provider organization to better understand the status of various waste streams. For instance, half of materials put in medical waste bags isn't medical waste, "it's just trash," Pierce says.

Database services also can help an organization find out what percentage and types of trash in dumpsters shouldn't be put in landfills, reducing landfill costs and increasing regulatory compliance. California, for instance, has a mandate for hospitals to divert half of their waste from landfills. "So you need to know what's in that material and in what volumes," Pierce says. "The analytics behind this are critical."

More information is available at healthcare.wm.com.

--Joseph Goedert