Members of the medical waste industry, seeking a trade association similar to the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) which serves the document destruction industry, will soon have their wish come true. The new nonprofit Medical Waste Management Association (MWMA), designed to serve medical waste transporters and processors, equipment vendors and healthcare professionals responsible for medical waste disposal, is scheduled to be up and running before the end of April.
“MWMA is a catalyst and advocate for safe and ethical medical waste disposal practices, as well as a resource for relevant and emerging industry information,” the organization says.
The new trade group was formed at the behest of NAID members, which include document destruction companies moving into the medical waste arena as well as medical waste haulers who have begun offering information destruction services.
“We’ve definitely seen a lot of new NAID members who have entered the information destruction business who were only in the medical waste hauling business,” notes Bob Johnson, chief executive officer of NAID. “So not only do we have companies who are in the shredding industry getting into the medical waste business – the ones who brought this to NAID and said, ‘Will you help us?’ – but we also noticed at the same time that many medical waste management companies were getting into the information destruction industry.”
NAID helped form the new trade group, which will operate as a completely separate and independent organization. In the early going, NAID staff will help manage it to get it off the ground and Johnson will serve as acting executive director.
Six people, all in the medical waste hauling business and from states from California to Florida, will serve as an interim board of directors.
“The interim board will be in place until such time as there are enough members and the time is right to have an election,” Johnson says, predicting that it will be eight to 12 months before a board is formally elected. He also expects a permanent executive director to be named once the organization is big enough.
NAID members came to that organization’s board seeking help in launching a new trade group for medical waste companies, saying it would help their businesses.
“A lot of NAID members are getting into that [medical waste] business as part of what they do,” Johnson says, “They already service the medical industry in their information destruction needs, so they’re adding this service, often in a separate company to their business model. They came to the board of directors and said, ‘There’s no trade association doing for our industry on the medical waste management side what NAID has done on the information destruction side, and we think it would be very valuable.'”
That appeal for help was bolstered by concerns that medical waste haulers and processors could come under the same HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations as the document destruction industry concerning protected health information.
“We’re now quickly approaching a time in technology . . . where DNA is able to be analyzed to the point where it’s going to be considered protected health information,” Johnson says. “And it’s only a matter of time, not very much time, before DNA has to be protected like every other type of information has to be protected. It is very personal and confidential and shows a lot [of personal information].
“I don’t believe it’s going to be very long at all before you’ve got medical waste haulers who are actually considered under the regulations as business associates under HIPAA,” he says. “The overlap there is amazing between what a NAID member does and what a waste hauler company does. They’re transporting confidential information. They are literally business associates under HIPAA. They would be subject to all the same things as NAID members are as business associates. In one respect they’re disposing of information just like the NAID member disposes of other types of information.”
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