From NurseZone Magazine: In keeping with its long-standing interest in promoting patient and environmental safety, Catholic Healthcare West has switched to polyvinyl chloride (PVC)/ di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP)-free intravenous bags and tubing throughout its 40-facility system.

"The market is changing, so now we have major hospital systems making the change to PVC-free devices," Anna Gilmore Hall, RN, executive director of Health Care Without Harm, an organization that has been working with hospitals and venders to facilitate such changes. "It's been partially due to the active participation of nurses in hospitals. [They] are sitting on committees and who understand the dangers some of these devices have on patients and are exercising their voices, as nurses, in trying to make sure we are providing the very best care we can."

San Francisco-based Catholic Healthcare West (CHW), San Francisco, awarded B. Braun Medical Inc. a five-year, $70 million contract to supply biologically inert, non-toxic plastic IV solution containers and tubing beginning in February 2006, when its current contract expires. To read the complete article go to: http://www.nursezone.com/job/MedicalNewsAlerts.asp?articleID=14655