5 Signs It's Time for a Medical Waste Audit at Your Organization

A medical waste audit is a systematic way to manage hazardous waste that’s usually done once or twice a year. It is important to evaluate how the current policies that the establishment adapts to effectively managing medical waste. An effective and efficient medical organization must have a secure and well-established waste management system.

In this article, we’ll tackle 5 of the most common signs in an organization that calls for a medical waste audit.

1. Public Compliance – Whenever an organization faces issues or concerns related to public compliance with medical waste disposal regulations, it is crucial that they conduct a medical waste audit. By doing an audit, the organization ensures to the public that they are following the necessary guidelines and standards.
2. Landfill – If your organization is constantly sending tons of hazardous medical waste to the landfill, it’s clearly a sign that it's time for a medical waste audit. It will help you find ways to cut down the waste going to the dump and to improve at managing it.
3. Establishment condition – A medical waste audit can be affected by the results of a recent facility check. If the establishment is in a bad condition or if there are faults found, it is best to implement an audit to check if the issues can have a long-term effect on the waste management system.
4. Weather factor – Medical waste management is a lot more challenging in regions that are exposed to extreme weather conditions. Floods, hurricanes, and temperature swings are just some weather-related events that can affect an organization’s medical waste management system.
5. People factor – The organization’s employees and staff play a vital role in managing medical waste. If there are reported cases of improper waste disposal and violation of rules, initiating a medical waste audit is a good way to fix these types of issues to prevent them from happening again.

There are a lot of factors that could trigger a medical waste audit. Nonetheless, frequent medical waste audits help organizations gain public trust and maintain internal management policies and standards.