The RWJBarnabas Health system – which includes the Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark - has received a "Gold Healthy Hospital Award" for diverting 53,588 pounds of medical waste from landfills and reducing its supply costs by more than $2 million.

According to RWJBarnabas Health, the designation from Stryker's Sustainability Solutions is reserved for select hospitals that "demonstrate outstanding leadership in health care sustainability and overall hospital quality through single-use device (SUD) reprocessing." Among such SUD devices are pulse oximetry, tourniquet cuffs, blood pressure cuffs and compression hoses.

In 2016, RWJBarnabas' reprocessing program in its 11 acute care hospitals successfully diverted 53,588 pounds of medical waste from landfills and reduced its supply costs by $2,172,990. The financial savings were an increase of 28% over 2015, allowing additional funds to be redirected into key patient care initiatives. In the first six months of 2017, the numbers have nearly doubled, RWJBarnabas stated.