Greenhealth Magazine, published by Practice Greenhealth, has announced the 2016 winners of the annual Environmental Excellence Awards.
One significant factor in the selection process continues to be Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP), the procurement of goods and services that cause less harm to people and the environment than competing goods and services that serve the same purpose.
Here are some examples of health care systems who have distinguished themselves in the area of environmentally preferable purchasing by implementing single-use device reprocessing programs:
- Hackensack University Medical Center
Hackensack, NJ
“HackensackUMC’s program for environmentally preferable purchasing includes working with suppliers, group purchasing organizations and distributors. Its purchasing department green team meets bimonthly to ensure that sustainability is considered in all purchases. Reprocessing savings doubled in 2015 over the prior year…”
- Harborview Medical Center
Seattle, WA
Harborview has implemented a number of successful green initiatives including “furniture and medical plastics recycling programs, paper reduction strategies, single-use device reprocessing, and many other intuitive and interconnected waste-reduction programs.”
- UCSF Medical Center
San Francisco, CA
UCSF Medical Center’s success in advancing green healthcare “results from single-use device reprocessing, 100 percent surgical kit review, reusable sterilization kits, LED surgical lighting and HVAC setbacks in the operating room.”
- University of Vermont Medical Center
Burlington, VT
“With its ubiquitous blue recycling bins, organic meals, and motion-sensor lights, the 392-bed hospital has all the markings of a sustainability-minded organization—and a successful one, at that. Behind-the-scenes efforts such as reprocessing medical devices, installing efficient pumps, and drafting an EPP policy round out the organization’s multidisciplinary approach to sustainability.”
Congrats from AMDR to all of this year’s winners!
Read More.