Hospitals
Going Green to Reduce Global Warming
As one of the fastest-growing segments of the United States
economy, the healthcare industry faces many challenges including quality of
service, containing costs and dealing with healthcare insurance.
You can also add environmental waste and energy consumption to
the list. Hospitals are one of the biggest energy consumers in the U.S. each
year. They also produce millions of tons of refuse, from paper to toxic medical
waste.
In recent years, hospitals have started to “go green” by
reducing the amount of energy used and cutting down on waste. Here are some of the areas they
have focused on.
Reducing Energy Use
Hospitals around the country are trying to find ways to consume
less energy, something that can be difficult to do because of the need for
hospitals to use energy for a number of important medical services and
machines. In many respects, a hospital is like a mini-city or hotel, with
laundry and cafeteria energy needs on top of medical equipment and facilities
for doctors, nurses and other medical staff.
Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut provides a good example of how
hospitals are attempting to cut energy consumption. The hospital saved 1.7
million kilowatt hours – about $303,000 in electric costs – by reprogramming
its heating and cooling plants, updating its light bulbs and reengineering the
hospital’s air handling systems.
Electronic Records
In the past few years, medical facilities – at the urging of the
Obama Administration – have converted recording keeping to electronic form.
There are many advantages to storing medical records electronically, including
giving healthcare workers the ability to quickly share information about a
patient.
An emergency worker, for example, could access the patient
records for someone they are trying to help and know the patient’s medical
conditions or what type of medicines they are taking.
But another huge advantage of electronic data is the amount of
paper that is not used. Administrators now store records – such as a medical claims audit or patient treatment history
– in digital form, meaning tons of paper is not needed.
Changing Disposal Methods
Practice Greenhealth reports that hospitals produce a staggering
5.9 million tons of waste every year. Part of that is medical waste, which must
be treated before taken to a landfill. Historically, most hospitals have used
incinerators to disinfect medical waste, a process that requires a lot of
energy and can also release toxic fumes into the atmosphere.
Increasingly, hospitals are looking at different methods. For
example, some are looking into autoclaves, which sterilize material by
subjecting it to high pressure, saturated steam for 15 to 20 minutes at a
temperature around 249 degrees. Other methods include chemical treatment of
waste or even microwaves to disinfect medical waste.
Handling Chemical Waste
Many of the chemicals used at hospitals – as well as items such
as fluorescent lamps, LCD displays and flame retardant mattresses – can be
toxic in the environment under certain conditions. Hospitals are looking at
changing the items they buy to more environmentally-friendly products as well
as creating programs to properly dispose of or recycle certain products (baby
bottles, for example, or wheelchair cushions).
Buying Local Food
Many consumers today make a point of trying to buy their food
from local producers. For hospitals, many of which run large cafeterias,
purchasing food locally can make a huge difference in the amount of energy used
to refrigerate and transport fuel from locations that are far away.
And on the
back end of the cafeteria operation, many hospitals are looking to work with
composting companies to dispose of food waste. Much of this compost is then
used by local farmers as fertilizer, completing the cycle.
Whatever methods they choose hospital administrators are aware
of the environmental impact of their operations and are working to make their
operation more environmentally friendly.