Oklahoma City – Bone and Joint Hospital at St. Anthony received a Best Practice designation for Environmental Excellence from SterilMed Inc., a Minnesota-based health care cost containment company and leading reprocessor of single-use medical devices.

Honoring the top facilities and systems throughout the country, Bone and Joint Hospital was recognized as a top performer for significant achievements by maximizing device use and reducing medical waste sent to landfills, therefore reducing the facility’s environmental impact. 

“This program is a success at Bone and Joint Hospital primarily because of our staff’s commitment to cost saving and reducing waste,” Terry Meler-Flinn, director of surgery, said. “Staff are kept informed of the dollar savings as reports are released, which gives them a sense of accomplishment for their efforts.”

Bone and Joint Hospital is one of more than 3,000 health care facilities in the U.S. that reprocess and recycle medical devices. Reprocessing diverts more than 5 million pounds of medical waste from landfills each year.

The American Hospital Association and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have called for American hospitals to reduce medical waste with a hospital goal of 50 percent reduction in medical waste volume by 2010. Current waste levels in U.S. hospitals produce over 6,000 tons of waste each day.

“Bone and Joint Hospital at St. Anthony has shown a strong commitment to its reprocessing program and should be commended for its efforts in protecting the environment,” said Brian Sullivan, CEO and President of SterilMed.  “We are pleased to recognize Bone and Joint Hospital’s commitment to both financial sustainability and medical waste reduction in your community.”

For more information about Bone and Joint Hospital at St. Anthony, visit www.boneandjoint.com or call 405.272.9671.
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About SterilMed
SterilMed® offers services designed to help healthcare providers lower their medical device and equipment costs by maximizing the life of “single-use” medical devices, surgical instruments, power tools, endoscopes and video equipment. This allows healthcare facilities to free up critical financial resources through better device and equipment utilization while maintaining the highest levels of patient safety. SterilMed offers a uniquely integrated approach to medical device reprocessing that ensures the most streamlined logistics and the most rigorous quality approach enabling hospitals and medical facilities to reduce device cost and to decrease medical waste.  SterilMed has saved healthcare providers hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of medical waste from landfills over the past few years.  For more information, please visit www.sterilmed.com.