The Healthier Hospitals Initiative (HHI) is a national campaign to drive environmental health and sustainability across the entire healthcare industry. The Initiative is not only focused on saving resources, but wants to demonstrate how sustainability can positively impact hospital finances.
“Sustainability is much more than just putting a blue bin next to the photocopier,” said Janet Howard, director of facility engagement for Practice Greenhealth, one of the nonprofits involved in HHI. “It is really the link between the health of the planet and human health. It is recognizing that in order to stand behind their mission, and the oath to first do no harm, the healthcare system assumes a responsibility to take a close look at the footprint of providing care.”
One of the first places to start is in waste disposal. In many communities, the hospital is one of the main contributors to this stream. An HHI report suggests that hospitals generate 32 tons of trash/bed/day.
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Seema Wadhwa is director of sustainability for Inova Health Systems, a Practice Greenhealth and HHI participant. Her hospitals have saved over $1,000,000 system-wide just by implementing better waste management practices.
“Savings are available even in areas with tighter regulations,” she said. “After benchmarking we found a higher than average amount of regulated medical waste. Since this is often six to ten times more expensive for hospitals to dispose of than municipal waste, moving things out of the regulated waste stream results in important savings.”
Much of the time, this can be done relatively quickly and cheaply. Most of the difference found by the Inova audits was traced back to tossing packaging in with the medical waste. They instituted an educational program and made it easier to separate the two kinds of waste. This alone saved the system $300,000.
Often people perceive sustainability as something that costs more. Both experts agree that sustainability is built on the premise of wasting less, which translates into saving more.
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These programs can also be used to educate staff and visitors as well as model behaviors in the community. It is thought that widespread adoption could help lessen some of the incidence of environmentally stimulated diseases. To the extent this happens, there could be savings to the hospital in these days of Accountable Care Organizations.
“For example we can look at what can be done to lower asthma attacks,” said Howard. “Not only can those steps be taken within the hospital, but also by taking the next steps to educate visitors and patients about what they can do at home.”