Health Facilities Management
December 2012
By Jeff Ferenc, Senior Editor
If it’s the mission of hospitals everywhere to improve the health and well-being of patients, staff and the communities they serve, health care leaders stressed that sustainability is part of their mission at the “Greening America’s Hospitals” conference at the White House earlier this year.
If you’re not yet engaged in sustainability, you’re “off the ranch” as one hospital executive at the conference bluntly put it. Considering the multitude of benefits that sustainability offers, it would be hard to disagree with that assessment.
In fact, those involved with health care facilities believe that hospitals are in prime position now and in the next five years to make sustainability part of their mission and business plan. Getting there, of course, is the challenge, but one in which they are better equipped to achieve, thanks to increased availability of information and new technology and design.
…Reprocessing and reuse of some single-use medical devices typically included in operating room (OR) procedure packs resulted in a $12 savings per procedure, the report states. If all hospitals adopted the measure, the savings would total $2.7 billion over five years. Eliminating unused devices in OR packs would save $1.02 billion over five years based on an estimated 45 million surgical cases a year…