It’s no secret that hospital and healthcare facility departmental and administration leaders are saturated with regulatory compliance requirements coming from myriad government agencies and industry accreditation organizations. Some of the more complex and confusing areas facing these leaders are the federal, state and sometimes local environmental regulations and corresponding compliance requirements.
Hospitals and healthcare facilities are subject to not only Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulations surrounding hazardous waste, hazardous waste pharmaceuticals and universal wastes, but other federal and state environmental regulations including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Emergency Preparedness and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). More often than not, when environmental compliance issues or violations are uncovered during an inspection, an agency request-for-information (RFI) or a chemical or waste spill incident, leadership is faced with reacting to address the symptoms of non-compliance without fully understanding or addressing the underlying root causes that led to the incident or non-compliance finding. In our experience gained from working with other industries and many healthcare facilities and systems, we believe it is critical that hospital or system management empower leaders in risk management, quality/compliance, facility management, safety, laboratory, environmental services, and pharmacy teams to work seamlessly on the organizational and regulatory solutions required.
When your multi-disciplined campus team starts developing the compliance corrective actions and possible organizational changes needed, we have found these steps to be critical to consider:
- Provide this empowered team the baseline knowledge on the full spectrum of environmental regulations and compliance requirements.
- Conduct a comprehensive environmental compliance assessment or survey of all key hospital departments using a structured and repeatable process.
- Prioritize identified compliance gaps or findings based on employee health and safety, regulatory and financial risks.
- Develop a corrective action plan and organizational review process that ensures follow through on the key prioritized actions.
This proactive approach sets the table for minimizing the environmental, legal, financial, and other risks all hospitals and healthcare facilities face.
Braun Intertec has experienced consultants that can help your facility address these issues and reach full compliance. For more information on how to navigate commonly faced and complex organizational and regulatory challenges, please join us with compliance expert Darrell Oman for our live webinar on June 24th.
