PPE with a Purpose: Supplier Partnerships Focus on Sustainability
Each year, across our system, Mass General Brigham uses roughly 97 million pairs of exam gloves and 3 million pairs of surgical gloves. These gloves are essential when it comes to protecting our patients and our staff from infection, but, ultimately, they all end up in landfills. While the amount of product we use is driven by clinical need, we can make attempts to reduce waste and choose products made sustainably.
“At the end of the day, we would never sacrifice the safety of our patients or our staff in an effort to conserve product for either a financial or environmental reason,” said Julie Barrios, senior director of supply chain sourcing and data analytics for Mass General Brigham. “However, we do work with our suppliers to find creative ways to reduce waste and limit negative impacts on our climate.”
Most recently, Barrios has teamed up Jonathan Slutzman, MD, and Gregg Furie, MD, who spearhead the Climate and Sustainability Leadership Council at Mass General Brigham, to source products that align with our climate-health and healthcare sustainability goals.
A major milestone in these efforts is a unique partnership with medical supplier Halyard. Mass General Brigham is partnering with Halyard to co-brand the company’s Sterling Nitrile Powder-Free Exam Gloves, which are produced at a green factory. Halyard has also created new sustainable packaging for its gloves.
“Halyard’s Eco Pull box has a specially designed base that ensures tension in the box as it empties,” explained Barrios. “With standard boxes, as the quantity of gloves gets lower, it becomes really easy to pull more gloves than intended. Some of those gloves end up on the floor and need to be disposed of, and some of them are returned to the box, which risks contamination. The Eco Pull box is designed to decrease multiple dispensing by over 50%. It also decreases glove bunching, sticking and tearing.”
Mass General Brigham also sources gloves from MoInlycke. The company’s Biogel Surgical Gloves are produced in manufacturing plants that are powered by renewable energy. Its natural latex material also has a 26% lower global-warming potential compared to synthetic glove materials, contributing to a lower carbon footprint for Mass General Brigham.
“MoInlycke is a great partner for Mass General Brigham. They share in our sustainability goals, which include a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, net-zero emissions by 2050 and delivering on our future vision by transitioning to 100% renewable electricity,” said Barrios.
These efforts not only support our sustainability goals without compromising the quality and safety of patient care, but also align with our Sustain efforts to reduce waste and optimize resource use. The success of Sustain, a systemwide portfolio focused on helping us achieve our sustainable financial performance goal through resource stewardship and continuous process improvement, relies on our people identifying best practices, generating innovative ideas and collaborating across our system to implement improvements.
Barrios credits the success of these efforts to committees across our system working toward sustainability. “It is the committees dedicated to this strategic priority that we serve. I am grateful to the clinicians and administrators who sit on those committees and drive this work,” said Barrios. “I am also grateful for our supplier relationships. They have shown that they care enough to grow in the same direction as Mass General Brigham.”