Tools and resources

Get started guide

• Climate and Health
• Community Benefit
• Toolkit
• Get Started Guide
• Leadership and education

(Delivering community benefit: Climate and health) Climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health: clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter. Doctors are increasingly treating patients with climate-related illnesses, and more than 70 percent recognize that climate is affecting their patients. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)…

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Engaged leadership and the value of sustainable health care

• Benchmark Report
• Engaged Leadership
• Report
• Toolkit

In a shifting health care landscape, sustainability programs are a timely investment that can generate significant cost-savings while offering a range of co-benefits. Across the country, hospitals are taking leadership roles in their communities in advocating for more environmentally responsible operations, cleaner energy, healthier and more sustainable food systems, and a smarter supply chain…

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Get started guide: Healthy food and beverage environments

• Guide
• Sustainable food service operations
• Food

Hospital food service often mirrors general societal food consumption patterns.  However, the health mission and large purchasing power of hospitals make them excellent models and drivers for healthier food environments and systems. There is an emerging understanding that the “health” of a food choice is a combination of the nutritional benefits is provides, and the way in which that food was…

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Healthy beverage baseline audit tool

• Guide
• Food and Beverage Purchasing
• Tap water access

The critical first step in creating a Healthy Beverage Program in hospitals is performing an audit of beverage policies, practices, access points, and product selection currently in place. This will give the food service department the framework they need to create a clear and comprehensive plan for developing and implementing a Healthy Beverage Program. In the following pages you will find a…

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Johns Hopkins Hospital: Balanced menus

[Plant-Forward Future] Given that meat is often the most expensive product category for hospital food service departments, Johns Hopkins Hospital adopted a “less meat, better meat” strategy, first reducing by 15% the amount of meat they purchased overall in 2014 and then investing in purchasing healthier, more sustainably-produced meat products.

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Creating healthy retail food environments in health care facilities

• Food
• Food Service

Hospital workers experience an 8.6 percent higher burden of illnesses such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, hypertension, and obesity than the general U.S. workforce. Although patient meals are carefully calibrated for their nutritional profile and tailored for specific diets, food and beverages sold in hospital retail settings are often out of line with dietary recommendations. There are…

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Purchasing processed food

• Food
• Purchasing
• Local and sustainable purchasing
• Sustainable procurement

Use one or more of the suggested environmental disclosure questions in your RFI/RFP to help inform your purchasing decisions around processed food.

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Food Purchasing Tools: Infant Formula

• Food
• Purchasing
• Guide

Use these suggested environmental considerations in your RFP’s or RFI’s as a way to evaluate supplier responses or guide decisions in the purchasing process.  

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