CHSU Discovery

Abstract

In the United States, the waste of expired or opened and unused medical products is well documented, highlighting their fiscal impacts on the healthcare system and their negative environmental effects. The benefits of collecting these products can help repurpose hospital medical waste to tackle the issue of low resources leading to problems such as treatment failures, development of antimicrobial resistance, and adverse drug reactions. Therefore, it is critical to understand how hospitals in the United States dispose of their wasted products and if any programs are in place to repurpose them. Based on the current literature, it is generally concluded that medical waste, especially in settings such as operating rooms or emergency rooms, is inevitable, rather focusing on methods to quantify and reduce that waste. A component of reducing medical waste discussed less often in the literature is the redistribution and reuse of opened but unused single-use medical supplies. This is likely due to the array of restrictions based on federal regulations or hospital procedures that complicate the redistribution aspect of the collected unused medical supplies. In one of the studies, redistribution was done by either donating the items to individuals involved in international medical philanthropy or to local health organizations. It is our goal to survey local hospitals in Central California to expand upon the current literature by extensively documenting the redistribution of the collected material with the aim to lay the groundwork for future individuals or organizations who are interested in partaking in global health philanthropy. To our knowledge, there are several hospital systems in the California Central Valley that have partnered with a non-profit organization, Medical Ministries, to repurpose their viable discarded medical supplies.