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Stericycle is the largest provider of
regulated medical waste management services
in the United States, providing regulated
medical waste collection, transportation,
treatment and disposal to over 290,000
customers in 48 states, the District
of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Canada and
Mexico. Suzanne Savage is Area Manager
for Environmental Safety and Health
in a region that includes West Texas,
Colorado and New Mexico. She has direct
responsibility for ensuring regulatory
compliance and managing environmental
safety and health issues at nine sites
having a total of 50 employees, spread
out over a broad geographic area. The
nature of Stericycle’s business
means that the company must address
a large number of diverse requirements
from federal, state and local agencies. |
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With a large territory to cover, and
no other environmental safety and health
professionals at her sites, Savage was
routinely receiving 10-20 faxes per
day documenting compliance-related events,
checking them for accuracy, and then
manually entering the applicable data
into a database to track and ensure
compliance. She would periodically check
the database against tracking requirements,
and then notify site management of any
impending needs. “The system
was working,” says Savage,
“but it required a lot of care
and feeding. And my travel schedule
made real-time access to the latest
information nearly impossible. Because
our business is medical waste, we are
especially conscientious about our medical
surveillance data, which includes hepatitis
B immunity status and vaccination schedules,
DOT physicals, blood work, urinalysis
and other data.” |
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Stericycle hired TrueNorth to improve
the speed, accessibility and quality
of its compliance tracking and planning
efforts. The transition was a simple
one for Stericycle’s operations
people, since the compliance information
they were routinely faxing to Savage
could simply be rerouted to TrueNorth
instead. The company verifies the information,
and then enters the data into its database,
which is continuously accessible via
the Internet to any Stericycle-approved
employee. |
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Savage now has convenient online
access to all of her employees’
most current compliance information.
“The utility of the system
enables us to use it as a planner
and an online management tool,”
says Savage. “Navigator
is very straightforward, easy to understand,
and can identify missing information
and flag upcoming deadlines. I have
all the information I need, whenever
and wherever I need it, and that has
enabled me to elevate both the quality
and the timeliness of my compliance
monitoring efforts.”
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TrueNorth’s
Navigator online service enables organizations
to capture, record and report safety, health,
training and environmental data for more
effective management of compliance efforts.
For more information, call 713.466.0829.
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