Session Description 

The Greening the OR Initiative was launched with a focus on acute care settings, primarily in hospitals. As this Initiative progresses, we feel it makes sense to include all facilities with surgical environments, including outpatient centers, surgery centers, physician offices and more. These non-hospital settings face many of the same sustainability issues and challenges as hospitals.

The Greening the OR Initiative seeks to identify best practices, reduce cost, increase efficiency and increase patient and worker health and safety on behalf of all healthcare organizations.. Focusing on the growing number of surgery centers is complimentary to and in concert with the over-arching goals of the Initiative. There are many sustainable opportunities within outpatient surgery centers and other community health centers (considering some “low-hanging fruit” such as operating during standard business hours and many other areas to consider). Deploying some of the strategies and tactics that have been identified in the GOR Initiative can provide these facilities cost savings, reduce their environmental footprint and have a positive impact on patient and worker health and safety.

Many of Practice Greenhealth’s current hospital and hospital system members have surgery centers and other community health centers in addition to their hospital’s OR suites. Demonstrating the growing commitment among the health community to reduce its environmental impact, membership in Practice Greenhealth has continued to grow, now available to Community Health Centers, where the challenges and issues of sustainability are much the same as in acute care environments.

Join in this webinar to learn about the new membership category and how to get started making your Community Health Center more environmentally friendly!

Presenter

Eddy R. Wenzel, RN, BSN, CST, CNOR, Education Coordinator, Visionary Enterprises, Inc
Eddy has studied and worked in healthcare for the past nine years, the majority spent at a Level-1 trauma center, IU Health Methodist, in Indianapolis, IN. For the past four years, he has worked as a staff nurse, Clinical Educator, and Neurosurgery Coordinator for Senate Street Surgery Center (on the IU Health Methodist campus) in Indianapolis. Currently, Eddy is an Education Coordinator for Surgical Services with VEI/Community Health Network in Indianapolis, IN, where he helps facilitate the educational requirements of the 14 surgery centers and hospital surgical services departments that are part of the VEI system.
As the Perioperative Go Green Committee Chair over the previous four years at IU Health, we grew the initiative from our outpatient center (Assessment, surgery, and PACU) to include the main hospital surgical department, cath-lab, endoscopy, labor and delivery, and other sister-surgery centers in our system. Eddy has also served on various unit, department, hospital, and system committees across the IU Health system, including the IU Health Surgery Center Quality Counsel. One of Eddy's passions is teaching, and he has presented at AST state and national meetings, and is frequently a guest speaker at various surgical technology programs around central Indiana. He has served on AST state and national committees and the Indiana State AST Board of Directors.

Prior to healthcare, Eddy spent a decade in aviation as an aircraft maintenance technician, mostly in Seattle, WA. He is supported by his wife Alicia and their four daughters.

Pricing

Member: $0  Non-member: $29