Five questions to ask for sustainability issues.
Garbage
Is the waste separated so that only dangerous red waste is sent for incineration and the rest separated for recycling? This can be a source of income for hospitals and / or kpa's. A soda can can be sold for 1p in scrap value (in volume).
Lights & Heating
Are obvious aspects being used to switch of lights, computers and ensure no open windows when the air conditioning or heating is used?
Acid
The gold standard is central acid delivery plumbed in to the haemo dialysis machine. If your unit still uses cannisters are open cannisters with some left over discarded or used on the next patient?
Heat Exchangers
If your unit used slightly older machines can you enquire if they have been retro fitted with this equipment? Waste heat from the pumps helps keep the lines at 37 deg body temperature.
Sustainability Contact
Many units have a dedicated member of staff who is the recipient of good ideas to investigate and implement. All commonly held beliefs start with a minority of one, if you have a staff member interested in sustaining our treatment or achieving maximum value of money this can be a good start as a recipient of good ideas for savings. Nobody has a monopoly of good ideas but many are lost as there is no channel for these ideas to be harvested and developed and ideas converted to real savings....
All good points by William, but what about saving water which a renal unit uses a vast amount of? Consider recycling it for re-use in the renal unit, which is far easier than you may think.
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