Approve the new Cochise County Community Used Sharps Disposal Program, a two phase program created and administered by Cochise Health & Social Services (CHSS), offering free sharps disposal locations to County residents, with Phase I beginning by April 1, 2015, and approval to move forward with funding and community partners for Phase II.

Cochise Health & Social Services is instituting a county-wide community used sharps disposal and low cost acceptable sharps container supply service program to Cochise County in order to improve the safety and well being of Cochise County residents. Currently there is not a comprehensive plan by any private or public health or public sector service entity within Cochise County that offers a sharps disposal program or a low cost sharps container supply service to the residents of the County. Cochise Health & Social Services Program Proposal We are proposing a two part program to be implemented in two stages. Our goal will be to obtain free used sharps disposal for Cochise County residents at 5 – 10 locations throughout the County within one year of program launch. We will be approaching MedReturn Unit Partners and other community organizations to assist us with reaching this goal. Program Management - This program will be managed by CHSS. The Health Director will assign Leadership Team members and other staff as needed to monitor and train staff at each CHSS location. CHSS Administration/Finance will order supplies as needed for the program, and maintain the new Stericycle contracts associated with the program to ensure desired set up parameters are met and all program costs are monitored closely. Daily program management functions will fall under the standard CHSS chain of command protocols, depending on staff members handling each situation, as it arises. We have established staff procedures and a training protocol for CHSS. All media materials will provide one email address (sharpsdisposal@cochise.az.gov) and phone number (432-9407) that will be set up just for this purpose, to assist in streamlining the question and answer needs of the public. CHSS is setting up a website with detailed program information and FAQ’s. CHSS Administration will work continually with all partners to ensure smooth and efficient operations for them, so their crucial participation can continue. CHSS would begin the program at all five (5) CHSS locations, Benson, Bisbee, Douglas, Sierra Vista, & Willcox. Our department currently has the capacity in place already to accept and dispose of the used sharps through our Stericycle contracts. There would be no additional costs associated. This program is being provided for the private sector only. Medical professionals and businesses are regulated under state and federal biomedical waste laws and are not eligible to participate. All residents may dispose of sharps at any one of the sharps program collection locations as long as their sharps are within an appropriate sealed container. We can offer this in a short amount of time once we have provided all staff with appropriate training on accepting used sharps and distributing containers. Staffs that will require training on acceptable sharps containers types are as follows: Front Desk, Nursing, Management, WIC, and Env Hlt. Purchase/distribute sharps containers ê-Benson – 25 ê-Douglas – 50 ê-Willcox – 25 ê-Bisbee – 50 ê-Sierra Vista – 50 CHSS will sell the containers to the public at a cost of $5/unit. They are 1 gallon containers and should last most users for a reasonable amount of time. All of the funds collected from these purchases will be used to support the program and future expenses. The ongoing costs will be covered by grant funds, disposal container sales, and carryover funding as needed. We anticipate this will be a very low cost program to implement. CHSS already has all of the core pieces already in place. Phase I Wellness Briefs - We will add a wellness and prevention component to our program. We are developing a wellness feature providing targeted wellness and prevention information to our program participants. When residents come in to dispose of sharps containers and/or purchase new sharps containers we will ask them if they would like to sign up for our “Wellness Briefs”. These briefs will be centered on a variety of wellness information. Specifically, prevention and wellness tips for those affected by conditions such as diabetes and other conditions that would require individuals to use sharps. The wellness briefs would be sent out monthly, and give all subscribers the ability to unsubscribe at any time. Phase I Media Campaign - CHSS will implement a website (http://www.cochise.az.gov/cochise-health-and-social-services/sharpsdisposal), email address (sharpsdisposal@cochise.az.gov) and media campaign to inform County residents that CHSS is now an approved used sharps collection site, free to the public, and that CHSS is offering sharps containers at a low cost to those that need them, using a wide variety of local resources to distribute the information. Phase II -Create new partnership agreements with at least five (5) current MedReturn partners, such as Fire Departments and medical facilities around Cochise County, in areas CHSS does not have existing locations preferably. Next we will, establish a protocol with those partners, allowing for County residents to utilize Stericycle containers (provided by CHSS) at those locations, for used sharps disposal locations, increasing disposal sites within the County to ten (10). Once we have our partners onboard we will add new Stericycycle contracts to be held by CHSS, to incorporate the new used sharps disposal containers we will supply for our partners, making them extended CHSS pick up locations, for Stericycle, adding no cost to partners. CHSS will take care of all fees for this new contract. The MedReturn partners that sign up will be used as sharps disposal collection points only. They will not be responsible for selling or holding containers. Stericycle will be scheduled to pick up from their sites on a regular schedule that will be to their benefit, and at their choice. The availability of the disposal container will also be at their choosing. CHSS will allow the new partners to run the disposal partner program as they are able. We will be bringing them onboard as a community partner, to expand services within underserved communities. Therefore we will make it a top priority to make this program as beneficial to all as we possibly can. Like the MedReturn program, the more participation the better and the result will be improved public health and safety. Each partner would be provided with free program flyers, media materials and CHSS location information, for those inquiring about where and how to obtain low cost disposal containers, and/or sign up for our Wellness Briefs.

Your approvals are respectfully requested.

Most County residents will continue to dispose of sharps in an unsafe manner, negatively impacting public health/safety and our environment.

Attachments are in progress. PowerPoint, Program Flyer, Procedural Document, Executive Summary.