I am a health care management major and last week in my health care class we discussed sustainability within health care. Some of it goes along with what we have talked about in our environmental health class. I found many a lot of what we talked about in class to be very interesting and wanted to share it with everyone.
Greening the Industry:
In my health care class we talked about ways to green the industry. Some of these ways are to have evidence based medicine, diagnostics, treatment that involves working with the body, devices and pharmaceuticals, coordination across disciplines with allopathic and alternative medicine, and green research.
The Suspects:
Some of the suspects in health care are waste such as medical waste and recycling, chemical management, device management, environmentally preferable purchasing such as packaging and production, sustainable foods such as local or organic, and facility management and green buildings.
Interesting Facts:
-Health care is the second highest engergy using industry behind transportation. If you think about it all over the United States hospitals are open 24 hours a day seven days a week, this causes a lot of energy use. As new hospitals are being build or renewed it is important that they are finding ways to make the building more environmentally friendly.
-Although it is not possible for a hospital to buy locally grown foods because of the amount of food they must have the health care industry seems to be moving towards more friendly products. The reason a hospital like St. Luke's, here in Duluth cannot buy locally is due to the fact that if St. Luke's wanted to buy tomatoes here, the entire years supply of tomatoes grown in Duluth would only last St. Luke's one month.
Current Green Health Care Participants:
-Pharmaceutical Manufactures
-Supply Manufacturers
-Architects
-Community Members
-Foundations
-International Provider Organizations
-World Health Organization (WHO)
I hope this is as interesting for you to learn about as it was for me.
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