Tools and resources

Delivering community benefit: Healthy food playbook (Health Care Without Harm)

• Food
• Community Benefit and Wellness
• Toolkit

(Health Care Without Harm) Hospitals can tackle food insecurity, obesity, and chronic disease while promoting healthy, local, and sustainable food systems. The “Delivering community benefit: Healthy food playbook” inspires and supports health professionals with resources to address diet-related community health needs.

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Video: Delivering community benefit: Healthy food playbook

• Food
• Community Benefit and Wellness

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Farmers markets, mobile markets and community-supported agriculture

• Food
• Community Benefit and Wellness

(Health Care Without Harm) Farmers markets, mobile markets, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs promote access to healthy foods and can strengthen sustainable food systems by supporting local producers while improving the affordability of fresh, local produce for low-income communities. 

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Integrating sustainability requirements into health care food service contracting

• Food
• Food Service

(Health Care Without Harm) There are many opportunities for hospitals to improve patient safety, worker safety, and the overall health of communities and the environment via their food service operations. By implementing environmentally preferable purchasing and other operational and maintenance strategies in food service, hospitals can help to reduce patient, worker and community exposure to…

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Strategies to increase sustainable food options via GPOs and distributors

• Food
• Food Service
• Local and sustainable purchasing

There are many strategies a hospital or health system can use to increase the availability of sustainably produced food options via existing supply channels and relationships. This document offers several strategies and resources to implement.

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Purchasing guide to sourcing food without genetically engineered ingredients

• Food
• Food and Beverage Purchasing
• Purchasing
• Sustainable procurement
• Sustainable food service operations
• Guide

Purchasers can take the following steps to source foods produced without the use of genetically engineered (GE) ingredients (also called “genetically modified” or “GMOs”).

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Composting: Frequently asked questions

• Waste
• Compost
• Composting
• food waste
• Frequently asked questions

What is composting? Compost is created from the decomposition of landscape and food wastes. In a finished product, it is a dark, crumbly and earthy-smelling material that appears similar to soil. Composting provides institutions with a method to dispose of a large portion of these waste streams in a way that benefits their bottom line and the environment. By composting, an institution avoids…

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Health and economic benefits from hospital investment in a sustainable food system

• Food
• Food System
• White Paper
• Guide

The support of health care administrators is needed to link the healing mission of hospitals to the purchasing and serving of sustainably produced food that is healthy for patients, staff, and guests. These purchasing patterns will help to transform the food system at large into a system that supports human health, environmental stewardship, and social justice for farm workers The current food…

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Circles of Excellence Honorees

• Awards

The Circle of Excellence Awards celebrate hospitals who have not only earned an award for all-around sustainability achievement, but who have also been identified as the top scoring programs for each category of sustainability. LEADERSHIP CIRCLE It all starts with leadership. The Leadership Circle represents the high-performing hospitals that have a strong infrastructure supporting a long term…

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Earth Day 2017 member events

• Earth Day

HealthPartners HealthPartners celebrated Earth Day in lots of different ways in 2017 – from electronics recycling to shred events to bee-friendly plants, there was something for everyone to participate in! Events took place throughout the whole week leading up to Earth Day and all across the Twin Cities Metro area and into Western Wisconsin. In partnership with a local non-profit organization,…

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