Waste & material traceability solution for sustainable facilities
Medical developments are an inevitable need of humanity. We want to live a healthier life for this reason we are creating solutions based on medical technologies. However, while we are saving our lives we might also be harming them if we cannot manage medical waste disposal properly.
What Is Medical Waste?
Medical waste is defined as the waste that is created in health care facilities that have contact with body fluids. Medical waste has a lot of types such as pathological, infectious, pharmaceutical, cytotoxic, chemical and radioactive waste. Also, sharps are included.
Modern medicine has brought us more production of medical waste. Some part of the medical waste is non hazardous however some part is dangerous for our health and environment. Exposure to this part might cause diseases and injuries. For this reason, proper ways of waste management should be ensured.
What Happens to Medical Waste?
Medical waste management includes many steps: collecting, separating, storing, transporting, treating and disposal. These steps should be handled very carefully to prevent any unwanted outcome.
First of all, proper waste management starts with the proper identification of waste. After the collection, it should be separated according to its type. Here some colors are used to define the type of the waste. Later the storage and transportation process starts. Here some special vehicles are used to ensure safety.
After this disposal process starts. The disposal methods vary and we should choose between them according to the situation. The methods are incineration, autoclaving, microwaving, chemical disinfection, irradiation, thermal inactivation and biological.
Methods of Medical Waste Disposal
This method can be described as burning of waste in extremely high temperatures. It helps to decrease the volume and weight of the medical waste efficiently.
In an autoclaving method, the medical waste is exposed to a pressurized saturated stream for a sufficient length of time at low temperatures in order to get disinfected.
This method also disinfects the medical waste. Firstly, waste is shredded, then mixed with water and internally heated to neutralize all present biologicals. The shredding process helps us to reduce the volume of the waste, and energy use is reportedly lower than that of an incinerator.
This method has been used in hospitals commonly since it enhances killing microorganisms on medical equipment. Therefore, it has been extended to the treatment of health-care wastes. In this method chemicals are added to the medical waste to eliminate protogens.
This method is used for sterilizing the waste by using a cobalt source that gives gamma radiations to eliminate all microbes in waste. However, this method is costlier.
This process involves heating waste to temperatures at which infectious agents are killed. Generally, it is used for treating large volumes of liquid clinical wastes.
This experimental method of treating biomedical waste uses enzymes to neutralize hazardous, infectious organisms. It’s still under development and rarely used in practice.
Meeting the Regulations
It is obvious that medical waste has to be regulated properly. Therefore, governments are tracking the medical waste management methods and its disposal very carefully to prevent any possible harm. The regulated medical waste aims to maximize control and minimize errors. The most important issue here is providing transparency and accurate information during medical waste management.
As you can imagine, the medical waste management process is highly complex, for this reason traditional methods are not enough to meet with the transparency and accuracy requirements. Therefore, advanced technologies in medical waste management have become more important than ever. Especially all-in-one platforms that eases the collection, tracking, monitoring and reporting of the data is a necessity now.
Evreka
As Evreka, we know that medical waste management is a very complex process, therefore it needs a lot of transparency and accuracy. Moreover, medical waste management includes a lot of steps that gives us a lot of data. We should track the data that is captivated from the medical waste management processes very carefully and also report them.
Also, the control of these processes is crucial. We need to minimize all possible errors to ensure safety in our operations. The hazardous effects of errors might be very harmful for our environment and public health. We can provide this by using an all-in-one platform based on advanced technologies.
For this reason, we are here for you with the best solutions! We are offering state-of-art technologies for excellent medical waste disposal. By using our software solutions, you can increase your efficiency and effectiveness while minimizing the cost and errors.
If you want to learn more about medical waste management you can check our e-book or blogs. If you want to become a member of this technology for operational excellence, contact us now!
