During a White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)
conversation on Tuesday, leaders in healthcare and policy discussed the
Healthier Hospitals Initiative (HHI) to reduce the environmental footprint of
hospitals, lower costs and improve overall patient health by including
sustainability efforts and initiatives into their business models.
The Healthier Hospitals Initiative (HHI) is a national
campaign to implement a new approach to improving environmental health and
sustainability in the healthcare sector. Eleven of the largest U.S. health
systems, comprising approximately 500 hospitals with more than $20 billion in
purchasing power, worked with Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), the Center for
Health Design and Practice Greenhealth to create HHI as a guide for hospitals to
improve sustainability.
Among those at Tuesday’s forum, “Greening America’s
Hospitals: A White House Discussion on the Healthcare Industry,” were
representatives from nationwide healthcare group purchasing organizations
(GPOs). They discussed the critical role of the healthcare supply chain in
introducing these environmentally sustainable designs.
“I thought it was very productive discussion, and it’s true
that the supply chain is an important part of greening the healthcare system,”
said Healthcare Supply Chain Association (HSCA) President Curtis Rooney. “What
people choose to buy matters and if you can get green products you can really
move the market.”
Rooney noted that last year HSCA endorsed the Practice
Greenhealth “Standardized Environmental Questions for Medical Products,” which
has been used to guide the identification, selection and procurement of
environmentally preferable medical products. The tool is a significant part of
Practice Greenhealth’s “Greening the Supply Chain Initiative," which the
organization launched in 2011 to provide a common set of tools for purchasers,
suppliers and manufacturers to ensure that environmentally preferable products
are available, cost competitive and of comparable quality.
“It’s primarily
important to make sure the patient gets the right and safest product, but this
initiative can also save money by aggravating the purchasing. It creates the
ability for the prices to be driven down so that these environmentally
preferred products can be affordable,” Rooney said.
Jennifer Waddell, senior clinical manager at Novation, a
healthcare supply chain expertise and contracting company, said Tuesday’s
discussion “brought to life an issue that is very important.”
“We support legislation around full disclosure of products
in technology and using non-toxic products in medical devices,” she said. “We
also have to do this in a cost effective manner. A lot of people think
environmentally friendly products tend to be more expensive, but with a lot of
the products in the medical device market there ends up actually being a
savings when you move to some of these measures. Also, energy conservation
helps hospitals save money in the long run.”
Source: healthcarefinancenews
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