Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) recognized a groundbreaking 190 hospitals, health systems, and health care organizations for outstanding achievement in reducing waste, virtually eliminating mercury, and improving environmental performance. This impressive number of award winners—more than double that of previous years—is the latest indication of the growing emphasis the health care field is placing on its environmental impact.

The health care sector is now at the forefront of a movement demonstrating that improved environmental performance isn’t only good for the health of the planet, it also makes sound business sense.

The annual H2E Awards Ceremony in Seattle featured fourteen Environmental Leadership Awards, the health care world’s highest environmental honor. This award recognizes clinics or hospitals that achieve a 25% or better waste prevention or recycling rate, are virtually mercury-free, and have established ongoing and diverse environmental programs. As this year’s award winners clearly show, positive changes are happening in small community clinics as well as major tertiary care hospitals.

Take the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Region clinics as an example. This network encompasses 17 outpatient office buildings. The clinics provide outpatient services for over 450,000 people throughout the metro Denver area. The region’s medical buildings are outpatient-only, “one-stop” facilities because they each house medicine, pharmacy, radiology and laboratory, in addition to various clinical specialists.

From 2002 until 2005, the clinics’ efforts were documented by tracking waste materials generation data for each building. Recycling rates increased from 18% (no slouch!) in 2002 to 31% in 2005. The clinics virtually eliminated mercury-containing devices, resulting in a 98% reduction of medical mercury in the region. Fluorescent light bulb recycling diverted over 25,000 bulbs from landfills.

The Denver area’s largest histology lab instituted an onsite xylene and alcohol distillation unit, dramatically reducing hazardous waste haulage fees and cutting the purchase of virgin chemicals. The optical laboratory completely eliminated use and disposal of several toxic metals and ethyl methyl ketone from its eyeglass manufacturing process, switching to new hazardous waste-free technology. The radiology department converted to digital imaging with the exception of mammography at every medical office, resulting in a 70% decrease in use and disposal of x-ray film. After the 7-year x-ray retention period in 2013, there will be no film in the region’s waste stream.

Here are some Kaiser Colorado Region success tips to take back to your own clinic or network:

• Start up an Eco Team comprised of volunteers including nurses, physicians, and other committed, passionate individuals.
• Establish environmental policies for your clinic. The policy can describe a commitment to natural resources conservation, environmentally preferable purchasing, minimization of environmental and safety risk, and environmental values in daily operations and business practices.
• Issue a memo from leadership to announce the creation of the team and the environmental initiatives.
• Train employees on environmental and safety programs including recycling, proper methods of high level disinfection (if applicable), mercury spill notification and management, and so on.
• Get into action! Set one or two goals for the year and work hard to achieve them. Examples could be: Preventing further purchase of mercury-containing devices; Exchanging mercury-containing items for mercury-free alternatives (check www.sustainablehospitals.org for a list of alternatives); Implementing paper recycling; Switching to reusable sharps containers with a contracted vendor. Remember that small and easily achieved changes in daily practice can make a huge difference over time.

H2E’s Environmental Leadership Award winners are setting the highest standards of environmental performance in health care. In addition to Kaiser Colorado, I’d like to honor the efforts of physicians, nurses, and administrators at the other 2006 award-winning clinics, hospitals, and health systems. They are:

• Affinity Health System, Appleton, WI
• Baystate Health, Springfield, MA
• Borgess Medical Center, Kalamazoo, MI
• Boulder Community Hospital, Boulder, CO
• Bronson Methodist Hospital, Kalamazoo, MI (2003, 2004, 2005 winner)
• Dominican Hospital CHW, Santa Cruz, CA
• Kaiser Permanente Colorado Region, Aurora, CO (Clinics)
• Legacy Health System, Portland, OR
• Mercy Hospital—Mercy Health System, Janesville, WI
• Mills-Peninsula Health Services, Burlingame, CA
• Sparrow Health System, Lansing, MI (2005 winner)
• St. Joseph’s Medical Center, Stockton, CA
• University of Michigan Hospitals & Health Centers, Ann Arbor, MI (2002, 2004, 2005 winner)
• W.A. Foote Health System, Jackson, MI (2005 winner)

In addition to these leaders, H2E also honored 176 health care facilities across the country with awards for their efforts to improve health care’s environmental performance, including almost 100 “Making Medicine Mercury-Free” awards!

If your clinic needs support in the way of tools, resources, and brainstorming, join Hospitals for a Healthy Environment as a Partner Facility. Download and post our newsletter, dial in to our monthly educational teleconferences with topics including red bag reduction, green building, and environmentally preferable purchasing. Visit www.h2e-online.org for more information.

Janet Brown is the Partners Coordinator at Hospitals for a Healthy Environment. H2E is creating a national movement for environmental sustainability in health care. Jointly founded by the American Hospital Association, the US Environmental Protection Agency, Health Care Without Harm and the American Nurses Association, H2E educates health care professionals about pollution prevention, rewards the sector’s best performers, and provides a wealth of practical tools and resources to facilitate health care’s movement toward environmental sustainability. www.h2e-online.org