Tools and resources

Waste management services RFP questions

• Waste
• Recycling
• Waste Management

When contracting for waste management and recycling services, consider the suggested RFI/RFP questions to assess service options to maximize waste reduction and recycling opportunities. Practice Greenhealth provides members detailed purchasing guidance on waste tracking, hauling, auditing, and fees.

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Beaumont Health System Green Officer Certification program

• Engaged Leadership
• Case Study
• Employee engagement
• Beaumont Health System
• Toolkit

(Employee engagement toolkit) The Beaumont Health System Green Officers program is a voluntary program where interested staffers help communicate and educate others about sustainability programming at Beaumont. Any staff member can volunteer to be a Green Officer. The Green Officers act as role models to other staff through energy, water, and waste conservation practices, and they are trained to…

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Cleveland Clinic: Individual behaviors help reduce energy

• Engaged Leadership
• Employees
• Employees Case Study
• Case Study
• Cleveland Clinic
• Employee engagement
• Toolkit

(Employee engagement toolkit) The rate at which Cleveland Clinic uses energy has financial costs, as well as human and environmental health impacts. Reducing the rate of energy used creates a cleaner environment, improves health, and delivers substantial cost savings over the short and long term. In pursuit of care affordability, over $12M of energy waste was identified across the health system.…

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Clinician Engagement & Education: Mayo Rochestor 2016

• Greening the Operating Room
• Exemplary Document
• Mayo Clinic
• White Paper

Hospital sustainability programs reduce costs and enhance the quality of patient care. However, given the long list of priorities that hospitals must tackle, sustainability too often falls by the wayside. Today, the benefits of sustainability are too important to ignore. The operating room is often the largest generator of revenue, as well as the largest consumer of supply costs and the biggest…

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Clinician Engagement & Education: NorthShore HealthSystem 2016

• Waste
• Medical Waste
• Recycling
• Exemplary Document
• NorthShore University Health System
• Presentation
• Greening the Operating Room

Northshore University Health System has implemented waste management and recycling programs in the operating room. Employee education, staff engagement, and other initiatives have resulted in an increase in recycling rates and reductions in medical and solid waste. Open the presentation to see how Northshore was able to make sustainability improvements.

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Clinician Engagement & Education: Virginia Mason Device Reprocessing

• Exemplary Document
• Virginia Mason

Single-use medical devices are expensive resources that end up in the landfill after use. By using reprocessed medical devices, Virginia Mason has provided the highest quality of care, while reducing waste to the landfill and reducing supply costs by over $3M in three years. In 2014, Virginia Mason reprocessed or recycled over 18,850 pounds of devices, which may have otherwise have been discarded…

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Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center’s waste audit report

• Climate and Health
• Less Waste
• Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center
• Report
• Waste
• Toolkit

(Less waste toolkit) Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health (D-HH) is a nonprofit academic health system that serves a patient population of 1.2 million in New England. The main campus, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC), In 2014, DHMC generated 2,867.5 tons of waste and had a 35% reuse and recycling rate. As part of a five-year strategic goal planning process in 2015, D-HH’s Environmental…

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Fluid management systems: Environmental considerations for the RFP/RFI process

• Greening the Operating Room
• Fluid management systems
• Sustainable procurement
• Guide

Utilize the suggested RFP/RFI questions for fluid management systems with reusable canisters to reduce a significant portion of waste from operating rooms. Disposal fluid suction canisters may contribute up to 40% of the waste in OR’s.

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Get Started Guide - Healthy Beverages

• Get Started Guide
• Guide
• Food and Beverage Purchasing
• Water

Sugar sweetened beverages contribute to the increased prevalence of obesity and associated chronic diseases that go along with weight gain. The production, consumption and waste associated with sugar-sweetened and bottled beverages have numerous negative environmental consequences that are often overlooked. By offering more healthy alternatives, the health care community can assist in creating a…

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Green Guide for Healthcare: Mercury reduction

• Chemicals
• Guide
• Mercury
• Purchasing

In 1998, a Memorandum of Understanding between the American Hospital Association and the U.S. EPA set new goals for hospital pollution prevention. One of the top priorities was the virtual elimination of mercury and mercury-containing devices from the hospital purchasing and waste stream. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin. The most sensitive health effect of mercury is an adverse impact on the…

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