Sustainability 6

Article One: Improving Energy Efficiency in Hospitals

With health care cost rising, it is very important to find ways to reduce cost and waste of these facilities. Finding ways to reduce cost is very important for health care facilities. One way to reduce cost is through energy efficiency. Hospitals needs to find ways to preserve energy. One way is to benchmark energy performance using the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Energy Star Portfolio Manager. Health care facilities are allowed to track the usage of energy and compare their energy use intensity (EUI) measurements to other averages. This will allow the health care facilities to see what percent tile they are in. The hospital needs to do energy audits to detect any inefficiencies. Start with the simple things first and then go from there (Schierhorn, 2016).

Article 2: Hospitals Save Millions with Sustainability Programs, Cut Back on Waste

When hospitals focus on reducing, even eliminating waste, they could save millions of dollars. Hospitals needs to focus on areas that uses the most energy, money and resources. Operating Rooms usually use about 30 percent of hospitals resources (Sanborn, 2017). “Fluid management programs, reformulation of operating room kits and unused tools, medical device reprocessing and HVAC setbacks for when ORs aren't in use can save $25,000 annually for just one operating room. The average hospital has 11” (Sanborn, (2017), p. 1). There was a 20 percent reduction per square foot in energy usage (Sanborn, 2017). This will reduce waste in hospitals.

References

Sanborn, B. J. (2017). Hospitals Save Millions with Sustainability Programs, Cut Back on Waste. Retrieved from: https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/hospitals-save-millions-sustainability-programs-cut-back-waste

Schierhorn, C. (2016). Improving Energy Efficiency in Hospitals. Benchmarking and a staged approach lead to better energy performance. Retrieved from: https://www.hfmmagazine.com/articles/2232-improving-energy-efficiency-in-hospitals