LMH Health partners with WasteMedX to impact the environment
LMH Health is announcing an innovative agreement with WasteMedX to bring a safer, sustainable option for medical waste disposal to the health system beginning in August. LMH is leading the country in this commitment as the first community hospital in the United States to use WasteMedX and one of only five hospitals nationally with this technology.
LMH Health has partnered with WasteMedX to provide safe, environmentally friendly and more affordable medical waste disposal.
WasteMedX, a waste treatment and disposal company headquartered in Indiana, utilizes ozone treatment technology to provide a safe, environmentally friendly and more affordable medical waste disposal to healthcare organizations. It sterilizes and shreds biohazards including trace chemotherapy and non-hazardous prescriptions, pathological waste, sharps and documents containing personal health information (PHI), reducing waste volume by up to 90%.
“Before implementing WasteMedX, we had vendors at the Main Campus every day to transport our medical waste, traveling as far away as St. Louis,” said environmental services director Bill Churchwell. “Now we’re able to shred the waste in our own facility and use the ozone compound to sterilize the waste and make it completely safe for routine disposal. It is estimated that it could take us six to eight weeks to fill a dumpster before the city picks it up and takes it five miles to the landfill. That dramatically reduces our footprint on the environment.”
In addition to reducing the health system’s carbon footprint, WasteMedX is fiscally sustainable. LMH Health estimates saving $78,000 over five years and $329,000 over the ten year agreement with this green technology.
“We were paying $500 or more in additional fuel fees each month to transport our waste and documents,” Churchwell explained. “Combine that with the cost of autoclaving or incinerating those products and those numbers add up.”
LMH Health president and CEO Russ Johnson said that installation of WasteMedX is one step the health system is taking to promote sustainability.
“This leading edge innovation is part of our commitment to examine every aspect of our business to ensure we’re operating in a responsible and sustainable manner that ensures long-term, fiscal viability, stewardship of resources and excellent patient care,” he said.
