Make no mistake, governmental, environmental and public pressures on pharmaceutical waste management are real. And growing every day.

With nurses handling as many as two hundred medications per day, and your facility disposing upwards of one million drugs and containers per year, proper placement of hazardous pharmaceutical materials is a daunting task. The classification of wastes is becoming exceedingly complex, depending on very detailed analysis.

As a result, meeting stringent state and federal regulatory guidelines is more and more difficult causing closer governmental scrutiny and an upswing in fines. The environment also suffers as improperly dispensed waste enters our waterways.

A five-month investigation completed by the Associated Press in March 2008 confirmed that a vast array of pharmaceutical drugs are present in the drinking water of 41 million Americans and in 24 major metropolitan areas. This report triggered increased awareness and scrutiny of pharmaceutical contaminants in the country’s water supply, including congressional hearings and state-level testing initiatives. A second Associated Press investigation, reported in September 2008, found that hospitals and long-term care facilities are contributing to our nation’s contaminated drinking water by dumping 250 million pounds of drug waste annually.

What’s more, in 2009 the EPA will be collecting information from hospitals, through mandatory questionnaires, about the disposal of unused pharmaceuticals to better understand current management practices and the magnitude of discharges to waters. This questionnaire requires a signature by a C-suite level executive.

EcoRex, a fully automated, integrated system from Vestara, greatly improves pharmaceutical waste management processes and controls. And will beneficially impact your facility's bottom line.

EcoRex answers the critical need for safe and simple waste removal. Specifically designed to free staff from human error, EcoRex accurately identifies and classifies all types of pharmaceutical waste, then captures identified hazardous waste, lower risk waste, CIII-CV controlled substances, and aerosols into the proper stream for disposal.

EcoRex provides the effective solution to help your facility meet or exceed regulatory compliance performance and environmental protection efforts, positively impacting administration costs.

EcoRex - The Regulatory Compliant Solution