Register for CleanMed 2013

CleanMed is the place to share ideas, think imaginatively, and become inspired by creative solutions. Whether you are just beginning your sustainability journey, have been measuring your practices for years, or are a supplier to the health care sector, CleanMed offers exceptional education opportunities specifically tailored for your needs. Here you’ll find agenda, session, and speaker information —continue to check in for updates!  

Register here:

http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/1061965/33929bec00/519946449/90a3ee7aa0/

ARTICLE: Green Practices a Growing Trend in Healthcare and at South County Hospital

An 82 yr old man is hospitalized after being found at home with altered mental status,  a bad skin tear to his left arm,  severe dehydration, and a badly infected foot. In the process of his 5 day stay in the hospital, physicians, nurses and aides will use more than a hundred  pairs of gloves, suture kits, multiple sterile dressings , two dozen plastic  syringes, IV catheters, fluid bags and tubing, disposable surgical gowns and drapes, and more. Now multiply that by approximately 30 million inpatient hospital stays per year in the US. Healthcare facilities contend with the disposal of biohazard, mercury, radioactive and pharmaceutical waste, as well as large amounts of food waste. Millions of gallons of cleaners are used annually in the nation’s healthcare facilities, to maintain an aseptic environment. These are just a few areas of environmental impact.

NEW ARTICLE: AMA Stops Short of Backing Soda Tax

AMA Stops Short of Backing Soda Tax

“America’s largest physician organization recommended on Wednesday that taxes levied on sugar-sweetened sodas be used to fight the country’s growing obesity crisis.

But the policy statement adopted by the American Medical Association‘s House of Delegates meeting in Chicago fell short of outright support for taxing sugar-sweetened beverages to control use of these products. Two recommendations to support such taxes put before the group’s policy-making body in prior meetings failed to pass…”

Groundwork Providence Awarded EPA’s Environmental Job Training Grant

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 21, 2012

EPA Announces $3 Million In Environmental Job Training Grants

Grants provide job trainees opportunities to protect public health in their communities

WASHINGTON – Today at the Sewage and Water Board of New Orleans U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus announced that EPA is awarding $3 million to 15 grantees through the Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training (EWDJT) program. The grants will recruit, train, and place unemployed individuals in jobs that address environmental challenges in their communities. These investments will protect the health of local communities by targeting economically disadvantaged neighborhoods where environmental cleanups and jobs are often most needed. 

NEW ARTICLE: Can Doctors Learn Empathy?

Can Doctors Learn Empathy?

…Empathy has always been considered an essential component of compassionate care, and recent research has shown that its benefits go far beyond the exam room. Greater physician empathy has been associated with fewer medical errors, better patient outcomes and more satisfied patients. It also results in fewer malpractice claims and happier doctors.

A growing number of professional accrediting and licensing agencies have taken these findings to heart, developing requirements that make empathy a core value and an absolute “learning objective” for all doctors. But even for the most enthusiastic supporters of such initiatives, the vexing question remains: Can people learn to be empathetic?

A new study reveals that they can…

 

NEW PRODUCT: The GreenRN iPhone app!

Here is the info a new healthy hospitals product sent to us by EnviRN News:

Dear Nurse Colleagues,

We are so excited! It’s been along time in the making, but we think you’ll find it was worth the wait. Our new (free) iPhone app for nurses is here, GreenRN

The GreenRN app provides tips for nurses three times a week to educate and inspire you about environmental health. It also offers ways to positively affect your patients and yourself. With our app, nurses will receive quick snippets of useful environmental health information such as ways to green your nursing practice, environmental chemicals of concern and how they impact human health, and ways to reduce exposures.

New Event:

Rain Garden Workshop for healthcare and federal facilities at the Brockton VA in Brockton MA, June 7&8 2012.