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John has been in the sustainability field for over a decade, and most recently at Harvard University’s Office for Sustainability, where he helped advance their healthier building materials program. John earned an MBA and a Master of Environmental Management from Duke University, and he graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a B.S. in molecular and cellular biology. At the start of his career, he worked as a cancer researcher at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. John is excited to be advocating for his two passions: sustainability and public health.
Type: Staff
Plant-forward is here to stay
Hospitals throughout the nation are serving less meat and a plethora of gourmet plant-forward meals that would be could be found in the menu at a high-end, trendy restaurant. As Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York discovered, this strategy satisfies customer demand while meeting patient health and environmental goals. They are not alone. Fifty-eight percent of facilities in our network reduced the amount of meat they purchased for cafeteria and patient service, according to data from the most recent Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence… Read More
Type: Press
Our cars, our health
The American Lung Association’s 19th annual “state of the air” report found that 134 million Americans – more than 41% – lived in counties with unhealthy levels of either ozone or particulate pollution in 2014-2016. In a country with over 270 million vehicles, America’s air suffers from tailpipe pollution. Health impacts of air pollution include asthma and respiratory illness, heart disease and stroke, cancer, low birth weights due to reproductive toxicants, premature death, and traffic morbidity and mortality. In Massachusetts, where one in 11 people already suffer from… Read More
Type: Press
The Healthy Carpet how-to guide assists hospitals in achieving the Healthy Carpet goal, which targets the elimination of chemicals and materials in carpet that can contribute to a wide range of negative health effects, including asthma, cancer, and developmental impacts, as well as environmental impacts.
Type: Resources
This document provides guidance for manufacturers wishing to meet Health Care Without Harm’s Healthy Carpet criteria. The criteria apply to carpet tile, broadloom carpet, and carpet padding. The criteria do not apply to area rugs and outdoor carpet and rugs.
Type: Resources
Carpet can negatively impact the indoor environment and the employee and patient experience in your facility. Some volatile organic compounds that can be released from the carpet into the indoor air are carcinogens or reproductive and developmental toxicants. Other hazardous chemicals can contaminate indoor dust, resulting in exposures. Workers in carpet manufacturing and recycling facilities can be exposed to carcinogens, asthmagens, and reproductive and developmental toxicants.
Choosing healthier recyclable carpet can:
Decrease patient, staff, and visitor exposures to harmful chemicals… Read More
Type: Basic page
Practice Greenhealth’s data, collected from hospitals across the country, will assist hospitals in identifying key sustainability program opportunities by benchmarking their own program’s performance. The data is divided into 10 components of health care environmental stewardship programs: leadership, waste, chemicals, greening the operating room, food, environmentally preferable purchasing, energy, water, climate, and green building.
Type: Resources
Practice Greenhealth collected and compiled extensive sustainability data from 327 hospitals to provide timely information to hospitals and health systems working to build environmental stewardship into their mission.
The environmental performance data coming out of health care continues to substantiate the claim that sustainability initiatives can add value, reduce negative health and environmental impacts, and save critical health care dollars.
The hospitals that contributed data as part of their 2019 Environmental Excellence Awards submissions together saved an impressive $68 million on… Read More
Type: Resources
Long commutes. Congested roads. No available parking. These are familiar headaches for staff, patients, and administration at almost every hospital and health care facility, including St. John’s Medical and Living Center in Jackson, Wyo. A parking space there costs $10,000 per year to manage and maintain. Instead of building additional parking spaces, the hospital chose instead to pay their employees to “liberate their parking space” from May through September 2018.
“We set a goal to reduce the employee drive-alone rate 3% over the summer months,” explains Lisa Smith, the facility's… Read More
Type: Press
The Visionary Leader Award recognizes annually one senior-level health care executive who is making a significant contribution to health care sustainability through groundbreaking and innovative strategies, and mentorship. The winner will be a leader who has effectively advocated for and woven sustainability and environmental stewardship into health care operational excellence. Below are the past winners.
2019 Visionary Leader Award Winner
Alison Santore
Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Social Responsibility
Providence
2019 Visionary Leader Award Winner
Barbara E. Tretheway… Read More
Type: Basic page
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Practice Greenhealth is the health care sector’s go-to source for information, tools, data, resources, and expert technical support on sustainability initiatives that help hospitals and health systems meet their health, financial, and community goals.