Wellness & Urgent Care Clinics are on the “front lines” of medicine, the staff needs to be proficient in evaluating and caring for – at least initially – any patient who walks into an wellness medicine center or urgent care clinic. Because of the convenience of UCM centers, patients choose these facilities when they are unable to see their usual doctor in a timely fashion or choose not to go to a hospital emergency department.
Wellness & Urgent Care Centers, just like any medical provider, generate a fair amount of RMW (Regulated Medical Waste), waste that may include:
- Sharps – This kind of waste includes anything that can pierce the skin, including needles, scalpels, lancets, broken glass, razors, ampules, staples, wires, and trocars.
- Infectious Waste – Anything infectious or potentially infectious goes in this category, including swabs, tissues, excreta, equipment, and lab cultures.
- Radioactive – This kind of waste generally means unused radiotherapy liquid or lab research liquid. It can also consist of any glassware or other supplies contaminated with this liquid.
- Pathological – Human fluids, tissue, blood, body parts, bodily fluids, and contaminated animal carcasses come under this waste category.
- Pharmaceuticals – This grouping includes all unused, expired, and/or contaminated vaccines and drugs. It also encompasses antibiotics, injectables, and pills.
- Chemical – These are disinfectants, solvents used for laboratory purposes, batteries, and heavy metals from medical equipment such as mercury from broken thermometers.
- Genotoxic Waste – This is a highly hazardous form of medical waste that’s either carcinogenic, teratogenic, or mutagenic. It can include cytotoxic drugs intended for use in cancer treatment.
Proper Red Container/Red Bag waste disposal is one of the most important waste management steps for Wellness & Urgent Care Centers. Because Red Bags contain items with blood or other potentially infectious materials, that waste stream can never legally go directly in the trash. Wellness/Urgent Care Centers who ignore that put themselves at risk for fines, and they put whoever or whatever comes in contact with that waste at risk as well. With that in mind, make sure you’re implementing these red bag disposal tips in your urgent care center.
General Waste Management Tips for Red Bag/Red Bin Medical Waste
- Waste should be properly segregated. This means only RMW (Regulated Medical Waste) goes in the red bag. No:
- Pathological waste products.(separate container)
- General trash (food scraps, paper cups, etc.).
- Trace chemotherapy waste. (separate container)
- Expired medications. (separate container)
- This ensures you’re compliant with any law, regulations, and it also offers money saving perspective.
- All used SHARPS should always go in a puncture-resistant SHARPS BIN. (separate container)
With BioSecure all-inclusive, accountable and transparent solutions, we take the “guess work” out of Federal/State and Local Regulations. Medical providers entrust us with their Medical/Hazardous waste management needs, and we offer them a piece of mind in return, knowing that their medical waste is kept, transported and disposed in a safe, ethical, regulatory and sustainable way.
Wellness/Urgent Care Centers are inherently different than doctors’ offices, clinics, or hospitals. Their volume of patients can fluctuate dramatically throughout any given time period. They might find themselves extremely busy after a particular holiday weekend but slower at other times. They tend to be smaller and have less room for proper storage of regulated medical waste. What does all this mean for their generated waste? It means working with a reputable, experienced, local medical waste management company is the smartest, easiest way to ensure full compliance with any and all medical waste laws.
We would love to help and partner with your single and/or multiple location Wellness/Urgent Care Center. Call us today for a FREE, no obligation solution/quote.