Is your hospital or office “green”?
As we get ready to celebrate the 40th annual earth day, I thought it would be fun to see if hospitals and medical clinics are going green. At the two hospitals where I work, one recycles cans and uses washable isolation gowns, while the other is a dismal monument to a land fill.
Sigh.
But there are some steps that are being made. Here is a list of “green” innovations that some hospitals and clinics are using:
- Collecting recyclables. For pity’s sake–why isn’t this at every clinic and hospital?
- Reusable isolation gowns. They are washed and then reused. My hospital switched to this, not to be more green, but during the height of the H1N1 season, the hospital ran out of disposable gowns, and realized this was a cheaper option.
- Biodegradable bed pans and bed pan liners made out of recycled telephone books and beeswax. Supposedly you just flush ‘emwhen you are done. (No, I’m not kidding!)
- Cotton insulation made out of recycled blue jeans rather than fiberglass. How fire retardant is this?
- Reprocess items that were initially designed for single use. This includes things like pulse ox finger sensors, SCDs, drills, saw blades and scalpel handles. Reprocessing is regulated by the FDA, which requires a licensed reprocessing company to perform the reprocessing. The reprocessed devices cost less than the new, and can constitue a large amount of savings for hospitals.
- Xeriscape planting rather than lawns.
- Low flow plumbing fixtures, non toxic paints, solar panels, and other “eco friendly” options are being used for new buildings.
- Changing to LED or fluorescent light bulbs.
- Using an EMR, which saves paper.
And lastly, as the Economist points out: keep people at home. The fewer patients in hospitals the less waste created. Ah,why didn’t I think of that?
