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SUSTAINABILITY
LEADING THE WAY Hospitals at the forefront of environmental sustainability
Dell Children’s Medical Center
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Boulder Community Foothills oothills Hospital
Catholic Healthcare West CHW’s sustainability efforts orts include eliminating mercury – since ce 2001 its hospitals have been virtually mercury free, and have organized thermometer mometer mmunities exchange programs in their communities to help remove this toxic substance ance from the waste stream. It has also installed nstalled water-saver devices to wet film processors at its hospitals, and introduced digital X-ray technology, saving more than 100,000 gallons of water per processor per year. In 2005, CHW transitioned to PVC/DEHPfree intravenous bags, solutions and tubing, eliminating approximately 840 tons of this toxic material from both the patient care setting and the waste stream. Its hospitals have also been undergoing a series of energy retrofits. At St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona, for example, the retrofit is saving electricity sufficient to power approximately 400 homes, natural gas to heat 1000 homes and water sufficient for 320 four-person households.
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Boulder Community Hospital’s ospital’s Foothills Hospital, was the first hospital in the US to earn a LEED certification. LEED criteria require re that fifty percent of construction waste must be salvaged lls construction or recycled. The Foothills site recycling program, with containers for recycling wood, metal, cardboard and concrete, achieved a landfill diversion rate of 71 percent. This earned the hospital a Certificate of Achievement from the City of Boulder and Eco Cycle in March, 2003. To ensure healthy indoor air quality, workers installed mechanical systems that provide more effective and better ventilation, including operable windows in some areas. The hospital used low-VOC (volatile organic compound) paints, adhesives and carpets to alleviate allergies and breathing problems. A highly efficient power plant provides heat, lighting and hot water for the entire campus. Energy savings are achieved with lighting using compact fluorescent bulbs, and by painting the roof white to reflect summer heat and reduce air conditioning demand. Outdoor lighting was carefully designed to reduce light pollution in the night sky. To conserve water, drought-tolerant plantings and other xeriscaping surround the area.
In January 2009, 2 Dell Children’s Medical Center enter of Central C Texas T became the first hospital spital in the wor world to receive the LEED Platinum tinum de designation, esignat given by the US Green Building lding Council. Co ouncil. Dell Ch Children’s hildren’s occupies nearly half a million square uare feet on 32 acres that were once nce part of o Austin’s Austin old Mueller Airport. Its environmentally-sensitive nvironmentally design not only conserves water and electricity, but positively impacts the hospital’s clinical environment by improving air quality, making natural sunlight more readily available, and reducing a wide range of pollutants. Inside the facility, sunlight reaches 80 percent of the available space. Outside, sustainable and indigenous building materials were used throughout the facade. A 4.3 megawatt natural gas-fired power plant produces 100 percent of the hospital’s electricity, heating and cooling. Kaiser Permanente Kaiser Permanente recently unveiled unv a Sustainability Scorecard orecard that requires re ovide environme suppliers to provide environmental data for medical equipment pment and produc products used in its hospitals, medical edical offices and other othe facilities. e healthcare industry’s first Claimed as the sustainability scorecard for suppliers, the new initiative could significantly tly impac impact how medical device manufacturers do business in the future, since Kaiser Permanente spends more than $1 billion each year on medical products. The Sustainability Scorecard will allow the healthcare provider to evaluate the sustainability of each medical item it purchases, while encouraging suppliers to provide greener products. It will require suppliers to provide information on the company’s environmental commitment, use of potentially harmful chemicals in their products and information about product and packaging recycling.
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