6 EASY WAYS FOR YOUR HOSPITAL TO GO GREEN

Why hospitals should be an example

Going green isn’t just about recycling. A strong green initiative reduces wastefulness, increases efficiency, cuts costs (especially in the long-term), and provides a healthier place to work.

Unfortunately, healthcare’s “green credentials” leave something to be desired. This is particularly maddening as the sector’s very mission is to bring health to patients. Yet it ignores the environment which can contribute to illness.

Healthcare can “lead by example” and reduce its environmental impact in hundreds of ways. Here are six of them:

Use Less Paper

It’s a wonder the entire rainforest hasn’t already been eaten up by the healthcare industry alone. Why? There are thousands of slips of paper in a typical hospital: paper charts, admission forms, discharge papers, insurance forms, patient surveys, medical histories, prescription writs, patient instructions, FAQs, and a provider’s orders.

A straightforward step to go paperless is to ensure it doesn’t have to exist. Start by deploying enough medical tablets throughout the facility. Trees are saved as patients sign consent forms on a tablet, and providers send instructions to the patient’s email address.

Even something as benign as taking a food order, typically a paper process, can be done on a tablet or entered directly into a bedside patient infotainment system.

Of course, paper isn’t going to 100 percent go away. Hospitals can look into paper-shredding companies like Iron Mountain Shredding to deal with this unfortunate fact. Companies like it have been known to keep half a billion tons of paper out of landfills yearly.

Research the Manufacturer of Your Medical Computers

Check the environmental compliance followed by companies you deal with. For instance, see if their packaging materials used are made from recycled materials. Or if they have a robust refurbishment policy and trade-ins to facilitate PC recycling.

Many will have a page on their website that outlines their environmental practices. Are their products Energy Star certified? That means they have met the strict energy efficiency guidelines the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy laid out. Energy Star certified products help the environment by using less power and can save thousands annually.

Determining a company’s practices in environmental friendliness may take a little research, but ultimately is worth it.

Keep Building Green

Did you know buildings can be built to be more energy efficient? \New and existing buildings that have received LEED building certification have gone through the process to find out how to operate more efficiently.

If you are not interested in securing such certification, even small changes to your facility can have noticeable effects. Create a sustainable roof garden for your hospital. A layer of trees, bushes, flowers, or other vegetation absorbs sunlight that would otherwise be baking into the roof and removes heat from the air through evapotranspiration. A roof garden reduce the need for air-conditioning in the warmer months.

Conserve Water and Power with Minor Upgrades

Hospitals operate 24/7. This means high power use like the HVAC and other utilities.

This power use can be reduced through a myriad of ways. Low-energy medical computers use less power and generate less heat, so they don’t strain the HVAC as much.

Hospitals tend to overlook their lighting system. So even something as simple as replacing old lighting units with new LEDs can save loads of energy.

Have an HVAC technician occasionally come through and inspect a facility’s system and ductwork. They can help find inefficiencies in the system.

Medical and therapy devices like whirlpools and linear accelerators use a great deal of water. Consider upgrading dishwashers, toilets, and similar appliances that may not be operating under modern conservation standards. This goes doubly for the whirlpools mentioned above.

Same with any linear accelerators; both should be inspected regularly for leaks and replaced with more efficient models whenever possible.

Craft a Sustainable Supply Chain

Everything from drugs, equipment, linens, food, plastics, tools, to disposables are constantly streaming into hospitals or providers’ offices. This is their supply chain. And every vehicle driven in the chain uses a great deal of fuel in transportation.

A tight organization system is the most effective way to make this supply chain more green. Ensure that shipments are bunched together. This will decrease unnecessary fuel use. Make sure the right equipment and supplies are ordered to prevent waste or returns.

Once this inventory has arrived, use a robust asset-tracking strategy. Medical tablets with built-in barcode scanners, RFID readers, and a sound management system can be used to keep a living, breathing inventory document alive. The user scans inventory at arrival, when it goes into storage, and finally when it gets used. These tablets create a database that lists the amount of inventory, their use, and where they are located. It's essential the details be securely stored and encrypted.

Haste Makes Waste

The EPA puts medical waste at something close to twenty-three pounds per hospital bed daily. That is a shocking volume to deal with. When this waste is not correctly disposed of, toxins and hazardous chemicals can leach into landfills, groundwater, and even into the air depending on the chemical nature of the toxin in question.

The changes to deal with the issue are surprisingly simple. Deploying medical asset tracking systems to keep track of inventory is a great way to find discrepancies and to correct any problems.

Finally, proper and intensive staff training is the best way to reduce waste. Frequent tests and reminder exams on devices like medical tablets and medical computers, and using them to track results, can help calculate when it's time to re-up training and can save time.

To learn more about green policies and environmentally-friendly technology, contact Cybernet today