Sustainability 6

Sustainability Initiative Part 1

Keondra Logan

MHA 560

Dr. Griffin

October 1, 2018

Local Hospital

Hospitals vary in the services that they give to the public and for that reason, they may differ in the departments. Some hospitals may have acute services like an emergency department or even specialist centers be it a surgery center or a burn unit. Some hospitals have outpatient departments while others have treatment centers for chronic services like dermatology, rehabilitation services or even dentistry department. However there are common departments that are found within a local hospital like; Emergency department-it is also known as a casualty department, and this department will in many cases handle emergency issues like when a person has been brought by an ambulance (Alemany et al., 2015). Admissions-This is the other department within a local hospital, and it is where patients record their personal information and even sign consent before they get admitted to a hospital. The critical care-this department is also known as intensive care unit, and it is where seriously sick patients stay. Other departments in a local hospital are; diagnosing imaging, elderly services, General services, and General surgery among others.

Main Departments and Operating Activities

There are several roles within a local hospital and which are carried by the medical personnel. For instance, some pharmacists give medication to patients. There are also physicians like doctors, hospitalist or even surgeons. These are the ones that check on patients and get to address their concerns. Medical lab technologists are the other people, and their role is to take samples in a lab and get to examine them. Nurses are the other people, and their purpose is to assist physicians in handling patients when it comes to minor things like showing direction, listening to the needs of patients and even handling the patients themselves. The other roles are those for therapists, medical assistants, and technicians among others. The operating activities are mainly those that deal with operations management. In this, there are practices meant to monitor and take care of all processes within a local hospital (Weeks, 2015). The practices are like the delivery of health care, cleaning, ensuring the environment is clean and even avoiding noise within a hospital.

Opportunities to reduce costs

Installing solar panels is one of the ways of reducing power costs. With power that has been harvested by solar panels, it will be used where normal power is used like in lighting and by that the electricity bills will be cut. Replacing toilets, urinals, and inefficient sinks are the other way. Sinks that do not work well waste a lot of water and when they are taken care of the water bill will be reduced. Use of timers in heating coffeepot during business hours is the other cost-saving activity (Weeks, 2015). Through that, no much power will be used as the coffee timers will go off on their own.

Sustainable Initiative: Energy Efficiency

This is the sustainable initiative that would work best within a local hospital setting. Energy efficiency will include the mechanism of solar panel use so that the environment within the hospital remains clean and no issues with payment of bills. Solar panels will have to be placed on the roofs so that they can get enough heat that can be used within a local hospital (Cakmak, 2015). Data sources that will be needed to collect information on energy efficiency are books from energy scholars, journals on energy and government books on policies of energy. People that may be contacted when it comes to energy efficiency are power experts and even local government agencies that deal with power distribution.

References

Alemany, L., Saunier, M., Alvarado‐Cabrero, I., Quirós, B., Salmeron, J., Shin, H. R., ... &

Clavero, O. (2015). Human papillomavirus DNA prevalence and type distribution in anal

carcinomas worldwide. International journal of cancer, 136(1), 98-107.

Cakmak, B. Y. (2015, November). Solar energy potential of Konya and architectural design

criterias for solar energy efficiency. In Renewable Energy Research and Applications

(ICRERA), 2015 International Conference on (pp. 1463-1469). IEEE.

Weeks, G. R. (2015). Collaborative Prescribing Roles as Part of Advanced Practice for

Australian Hospital Pharmacists (Doctoral dissertation, Monash University).