Hospitals are leading initiatives to reduce carbon footprint and energy costs
Healthcare ranks as the country’s second most energy intensive industry, spending more than $6.5 billion each year while experiencing double-digit cost increases. The industry’s reliance on conventional, non-renewable energy sources (oil, coal) contributes disproportionately to the emission of greenhouse gases, driving climate change and impacting public health from air pollution. Hospitals in the Premier healthcare alliance are taking the lead in helping healthcare organizations advance environmental sustainability to lower costs, promote quality and preserve the communities they serve. These efforts have been recognized for six consecutive years by Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E), now known as Practice Greenhealth.
A new collaborative climate and energy initiative will help hospitals save money while decreasing healthcare’s carbon footprint
- In an effort to address critical energy issues, the Premier healthcare alliance has launched a new collaborative to reduce healthcare’s carbon footprint. The new program, called SPHERE (Securing Proven Healthcare Energy Reduction for the Ecosystem), focuses on reducing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions and related negative health effects, as well as increasing the use of cleaner, renewable energy.
- As part of SPHERE, Premier is collaborating with Practice Greenhealth and its Health Care Clean Energy Exchange (HCEE) to lead the first large-scale, healthcare reverse auction for energy, which establishes competition among energy suppliers to reduce prices of energy and environmental commodities, enabling hospitals to lock in more stable pricing, and increase their percentage of renewable energy purchases.
- The program will bring hospitals together to share best practices and benchmark their energy use to positively impact climate change and public health.
Hospitals are finding many other creative ways to be green while reducing costs
- Hospitals in the Premier healthcare alliance are proactively taking other environmentally friendly actions, including composting of organic materials, recycling of floor coverings, lab solvents, and construction waste, purchasing organically grown foods, using foodware made of bio-based materials, and increasing use of energy efficient LED lighting.
- Hartford, Connecticut-based Saint Francis Care, the largest Catholic hospital in New England, has been ranked among the top 10 percent energy efficient businesses in the country. Saint Francis Care is achieving this highly regarded ENERGY STAR® classification by installing its own fuel cell, upgrading its lighting and making its laundry, heating and cooling systems more environmentally friendly and efficient, among other initiatives.
- Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital’s pollution prevention efforts have led to dramatic energy and water savings. Since launching its initiatives in 2005, HMFW has reduced its overall solid waste stream by 50 percent and exceeded its overall recycling goal by recycling 41 percent of the overall waste stream; reduced energy consumption by 5 percent; reduced regulated medical waste generation by an average of 10 percent; and eliminated 91 percent of mercury-containing devices and products from the facility.
What’s being said?
“Reducing our carbon footprint and contributing to the use of renewable energy to improve the health of communities we serve are goals we share with Premier. By participating in Premier’s energy initiative, the savings we achieve in energy use and costs will go directly to improvement in the quality of care.”
- Kenneth Ferron, vice president, administration, Covenant Health Systems, Inc., in Lexington, MA
For more information about green efforts in the Premier healthcare alliance, please visit the Premier Safety Institute Web site at www.premierinc.com/safety.
About the Premier healthcare alliance, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals
and 80,000-plus other healthcare sites using the power of collaboration to lead
the transformation to high quality, cost-effective care. Owned by hospitals,
health systems and other providers, Premier maintains the nation's most
comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and
operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping
deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier has worked with the
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National
Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in
Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in
Washington.
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