Practice Greenhealth, a nonprofit organization working to help healthcare organizations improve their environmental practices, has released the Standardized Environmental Questions for Medical Products. The questions are designed to help hospitals identify, request and procure environmentally preferable medical products.
In a press release accompanying the launch, Anna Gilmore Hall, executive director of Practice Greenhealth, said, “By selectively choosing the medical products that enter hospital facilities, we can generate demand for inherently safer products and services for patients, workers and the environment.”
The tool is intended to serve as a template with a common set of standardized questions on key environmentally preferable attributes of medical products that can be used by all stakeholders. Stakeholders that are likely to find the tool helpful include group purchasing organizations and healthcare purchasers, as well as manufacturers and suppliers.
In a separate release applauding the launch, Gary Cohen, president and founder of Health Care Without Harm, noted, "This new tool is also significant in that it now sends a clear signal to suppliers that hospitals are looking for safer chemicals and greener products."
The new questions are part of Practice Greenhealth's Greening the Supply Chain™ Initiative, which was launched earlier this year in order to provide a common set of tools for purchasers, suppliers and manufacturers to encourage the supply chain to provide environmentally preferable products that are cost competitive, and of comparable or superior quality to products already in use.
NGOs aren’t the only organizations applauding the release. Susan Vickers, RSM vice president, Community Health, Catholic Healthcare West, pointed out that "The search for alternative products is often difficult, because of limited supply and little knowledge about product makeup. If manufacturers now know they will be asked about product sustainability, we feel they will become better informed and more responsive to hospitals and systems like ours, that request safer, more sustainable products."
Moreover, the board of directors of the Healthcare Supply Chain Association (HSCA), a membership group for healthcare supply chain professionals, has already voted to endorse the new tool. In announcing the organization’s endorsement, HSCA President Curtis Rooney said, “Our endorsement ensures that our members will commit to asking these important questions in the procurement process. We believe this will significantly contribute to the efforts of healthcare providers aimed at reducing their environmental footprint. It will also serve to educate the nation’s healthcare providers and create a more informed decision-making process when sourcing and purchasing products.”
According to Practice Greenhealth, “These standardized questions are key considerations in purchasing practices in order to meet several goals including, but not limited to, providing a supply chain tool identifying key environmental attributes of concern to the health care sector, (and) utilizing a collaborative approach among the largest purchasers of medical products to accelerate demand for products with reduced environmental and human health impacts.”