title: Evaluation of an education and training intervention to reduce health care waste in a tertiary hospital in Spain.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In recent decades there has been a significant increase in waste generation. Training interventions in advanced health care waste management can improve the segregation of regulated medical waste and reduce volume and costs.
  
  
  METHODS
  We carried out a quasi-experimental intervention study with before and after training session analysis to compare waste segregation. Descriptive analysis of the segregated health care waste and an evaluation of the quality of segregation were done. A comparison of monthly average waste to assess the effectiveness of the educational intervention was performed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  After the intervention, there was a significant reduction in the monthly average health care waste volume of 6.2%. Statistically significant differences in the infectious waste and genotoxic/pharmaceutical waste weight segregated before and after the intervention (P < .05) were found. Because of the health care waste weight reduction and the improvement of waste classification, a savings cost of €125,205 was achieved.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The health care waste management training improves biomedical waste segregation at the hospital, reducing the health care waste volume and costs as an added value.
authors.affiliation: Preventive Medicine Department, Alcorcón University Hospital Foundation, Madrid, Spain. Electronic address: mmosquera@fhalcorcon.es.
authors.forename: Margarita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mosquera
authors.affiliation: Preventive Medicine Department, Alcorcón University Hospital Foundation, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Maria José
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Andrés-Prado
authors.affiliation: Preventive Medicine Department, Alcorcón University Hospital Foundation, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Gil
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Caravaca
authors.affiliation: Preventive Medicine Department, Alcorcón University Hospital Foundation, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Pello
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Latasa
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Marta E G
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Mosquera
mesh_terms: D001521:Behavior Therapy; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D004501:Education, Medical; D006801:Humans; D008506:Medical Waste / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017744:Medical Waste Disposal / Q000379:methods*; D013030:Spain; D062606:Tertiary Care Centers
chemical_list: D008506:Medical Waste; D017744:Medical Waste Disposal
keywords: Environment; Health care waste management; Health education; Medical waste