Medical Waste Articles

To say that COVID-19 (the latest official name for the coronavirus) is wreaking havoc all over the world is a huge understatement. The virus, which originated in China, is spreading to countries all over the globe including the United States. Medical professionals are both trying to address those already infected as well as put containment measures in place to avoid further infection.

1. What are Lab Packs?

Laboratory packs aka lab packs are small containers of hazardous waste material packed in drums. They're used by hospitals, laboratories, college campuses, factories, veterinarians, embalmers — anywhere small quantities of hazardous chemicals need to be carefully stored before professionally transported and disposed of by a medical waste disposal service.

Cytotoxic, or chemotherapy waste, is a top concern for healthcare facilities who are always on the lookout for the safest, most cost-effective disposal methods. The smallest of errors when packaging, labeling, and disposing of chemo waste can have serious consequences, including steep fines and penalties for non-compliance.

All medical waste generators are required by federal and state law to follow specific guidelines to properly segregate, transport, and dispose of pathology, or laboratory medical waste. Pathology waste is often generated by facilities like veterinary offices, surgical centers, hospitals, and cosmetic surgery centers where tissue or blood specimens are obtained for diagnostics and/or treatment.

Because of the extremely serious personal, legal, and financial risks associated with them, reducing the incidences of needlesticks, cuts, and punctures from loose sharps is a top priority in medical waste disposal.

Most people grow up knowing what blood is, never giving it a second thought. It’s only when you reach adulthood that it becomes clear just how much of a life-giving role blood plays in our systems. In and of itself, blood is neither safe nor unsafe, but waste that consists of blood and blood products is a different story.

Most people who work within the healthcare industry, whether they are clinical staff or in administrative positions, are aware that red waste bags are specially made to isolate certain types of medical waste. These are waste products that can pose an infection hazard should they be mixed with regular trash that is likely to end up in the local landfill. However, the rules on medical waste disposal can be confusing, and things can get murky when it comes to determining just which waste products belong in these bags and which do not.

Every medical facility administrator knows that medical waste requires proper management to ensure safety of the general population, animals, and the environment. Compliance with local, state, and federal regulations are an important part of the job function.

As a manager in a medical office or clinic, you are certainly aware of the risks to your staff posed by medical waste, as well as the OSHA regulations that address that risk. Complying with OSHA’s guidelines for medical waste management in the workplace is essential to minimizing risks to employees, protecting their health and safety. It is also essential to protecting your facility against the legal and financial consequences of compliance mistakes. To make things a bit easier, here are a few important steps to help ensure OSHA medical waste compliance in your workplace.

In this day and age, nearly everyone knows that the hypodermic needles used to give injections belong in sharps containers when it comes time to discard them. That simple fact has become common knowledge over recent years, even among people who are not in the healthcare field. However, what is murkier in the minds of many – even medical professionals, medical office managers and other support staff – is what, besides those needles, should be disposed of in these specialized containers. Here we’ll help clear the confusion by outlining what else should go in sharps containers in order to ensure compliance with medical waste management best practices.