Healthcare centers are large consumers of plastic and single-use cups, which generate waste that takes 1.000 years to degrade, due to their slow decomposition process. Plastics accumulate in the seas, oceans and beaches, being ingested by marine animals, which end up on our plates. In addition, paper cups contain 5% traces of plastic due to waterproofing. This fact means that it is a waste that is much more difficult to recycle than an exclusively plastic cup. And, biodegradable cups are economically more expensive and continue to be a single-use waste that should be recycled.
Parc Taulí consumed more than 1.300.000 plastic cups a year to give oral medication to patients, that's more than 100.000 cups a month -between 100 and 150 cups a day per hospital floor-, with an economic cost of more than €8.300 each year.
Given this fact, the Strategy and Quality service decided to carry out a study on the consumption of plastic cups and how it could be reduced. This is how the Pill-it project was born. They began working together with the Innovation unit of the Parc Taulí Research and Innovation Institute (I3PT) and the Sabadell Design School (ESDI), to design a product that would help reduce this waste in the hospital and the economic cost.
"After conducting a search and surveying professionals, we decided that the most appropriate solution was a container that was part of the room's furniture, accessible and easily identifiable and cleanable.”, explains the head of the process office, Anna Auge.
Together with ESDI, the prototype was defined and worked on, which turned out to be two objects: a small tray that forms part of the table corresponding to each bed and a glass for transporting medication. “The trays and cups are of different colors, to differentiate between the bed that is located next to the window and the one by the entrance door. And, the hospital's corporate colors of green and orange were chosen.”, points out the head of patient safety, Gemma Navarro.
The pilot test of replacing plastic cups with these two utensils was carried out at the Albada and VII Centenari social health centers, as well as in the 4th and 8th hospitalization units of Parc Taulí. With the implementation of this project, the use of single-use plastic cups has been reduced by 70% throughout the CCSPT. This represents a saving of more than €9.000 per year.
But the Pill-it project doesn't just have a positive impact on the environment.but also guarantees patient safety, since the glass and tray are easily identifiable by their colors. This avoids human errors such as confusing the patient's medication with the next one.”, assures the head of patient safety.
At the moment, the project has been implemented in the Albada and VII Centenary socio-health centers and studies have already begun on how to do it in other centers and spaces of the Parc Taulí Healthcare Corporation Consortium.