Importance of Environmental Sustainability

Discuss About The Environmental Sustainability In Hospitals.

The report is prepared for reviewing the green initiative undertaken by hospital sector of United Arab Emirates. For this purpose, the essential aspects of the provided document titled “Environmental sustainability in hospitals: The value of efficiency” have been summarized. The document depicts the importance of maintaining environmental sustainability is hospitals. Initiatives of sustainability in hospitals requires creating of structure and availability of sufficient funds along with support in terms of cultural change such as adequate resources, appropriate policies, effective leadership and vision that is clearly communicated. Furthermore, healthcare organizations should be taken into account the available opportunities such as water, energy, supply chain, commissioning and retro commissioning waste for becoming sustainable (Hpoe.org, 2018). Health of population can be improved by incorporating sustainability in their strategic approach. It has been ascertained from some research that the top concern for most of the hospitals have been financial pressure and the efforts of sustainability should be financially viable for generating long term success.

For the purpose of analysis, the following issues have been addressed in Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi of UAE that is known for providing complex and critical care requirements that is unique to the Abu Dhabi population. Cleveland is a multispecialty hospital having the institutes of Neurology, eye and respiratory, heart and vascular, emergency medicine. When it comes to facilities management of healthcare it is required to implement a sustainable business approach. Healthcare organizations would be able to save multimillion dollar by providing solutions of sustainable facilities management through efficient practice of water, energy and waste management (Bruns et al., 2017).

Healthcare organizations are provided with multiple benefits from reducing the waste of electricity in terms of lower utility cost and helping the environment by reducing the amount of natural resources that are to be used. It is required by hospitals to comply with the energy saving programs of state and local governments that have mandated adoption of green building codes and reduction of energy. Energy in hospitals can be saved by way of reducing emission of carbon and monitoring and the implementation of AC modules can slash electricity bills by 15% (clevelandclinicabudhabi.ae 2018).  Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi has several interrelated programs in place for reducing the consumption of electricity substantially. Some other efforts involve encouraging energy users to consume energy efficiently by demand side management, smart metering and distributed generation that help in reducing transmission loss by onsite energy generation. In addition to this, customer awareness programs have been launched by Dubai electricity and water authority that persuades user to set their air conditioners to warmer settings. However, an integrated strategy should be developed by policymakers for managing electricity. In this regard, it is required by health care leaders to ensure that efforts of reduction of electricity wastage would work in hospital setting (Blass et al., 2017). For instance, unless the level of lighting required by surgeons is provided, usage of high efficiency light bulbs in operating room will not work.

Efforts of Sustainability in Hospitals

The wastewater pollution and consumption of water in hospital can be reduced by implementing a series or recycling, conservation and treatment measures. In order to withstand natural, physical, social and economic disruption, it is essential by healthcare organization to establish the relationship between healthcare resilience and availability of potable water. Hospitals in an attempt to become greenest organization can reduce the amount of water it requires. UAE is charges with lowering its reliance on desalination plants and so that amount of domestic water usage by hospitals should be reduced. Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi has reduced the amount of water required by changing the plant mix in its ground and using condensed water from the air conditioning system. The importance of properly segregating the waste is done by tracking average total cost per ton for disposal of given type of material. Hospital also succeeded in cutting the amount of water that is used for irrigation. The hot water demand of clinic from the last year, 2017 has been met by solar water heaters (Klein, 2015). This will have the consequence of saving 750000 Dirham on its utility bills and thereby reducing the carbon footprint of hospital. The monthly usage of water within the hospital has fell to 19830 cubic meters in September, 2017 compared to 28787 cubic meters in December, 2016 according to report released by in house sustainability of hospital. It is indicated by this data that hospital has saved more than 20 millions of while providing g excellent care without compromising the safety of patient (Malik et al., 2016). This move of reducing the wastage of water is the ongoing commitment of hospital to become one of the greenest healthcare facilities operating in region.

Sustainability issue is considerably affected by the supply chain of organization and a CQO (cost, outcome and quality) approach is adopted by supply chain managers for effectively managing supply chain. Employment of green supply chain management at hospitals provides with a holistic approach for reducing the impact of operations on environment and save money (Portals.clevelandclinic.org, 2018). 

At global level, healthcare industry is regarded as the commercial supplier in the world that is the most resource intensive. Cleveland Clinic has taken every possible effort to become more and more environmentally sustainable. In MENA region, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi has become one of the first hospitals to reduce the emission of carbon by implementing a green house tool for exhausting log and quantifying the exact amount of green house emission produced by hospital. The amount of cooling required by iconic building constructed by hospital has been reduced by designing an innovative double skin exterior that helps in providing air buffer between outdoor and indoor environment (Campion et al., 2015).

Opportunities for Sustainability in Hospitals

Cleveland Clinic has implemented green supply chain management; hospital is able to fulfil several green requirements for becoming a green organization.  The raw materials under the green supply chain management are less used and are mostly recyclable. It also helps in proper disposition of waste and help in green food and material consumption. For the whole life cycle of green hospital in keeping people and environment safe, the management of organization is required to be sustainable. The green chain supply management enables organization to have an environmental preferable purchasing that lowers the consumption of water and energy, minimizing the amount of hazardous chemicals entering the hospital and reducing the packaging waste. This promotion of sustainable decision by way of greener supply chain management would help organization to contribute to a positive public image in addition to environmental benefits and cost savings (Jamieson et al., 2015).

The management of solid and hazardous waste is one of the challenging tasks faced by healthcare organization. Hence, a proper management of medical waste is required for minimizing environmental and health risks. A comprehensive chain of actions are required for medical waste management. Across the healthcare system, Cleveland clinic is committed to reduce the waste by engaging caregivers for minimizing the waste that is send to landfills. This helps in reducing the cost, protecting the environment and improving land, air and water quality in communities. The system of organization is designed to handle the waste management in responsible manner and significant progress has been made in number of areas in year 2014 (Rich et al., 2018).

Furthermore, Cleveland Clinic created a system wide expansion of recycling program of clinical plastics in partnership with waste vendor and Buckeye industries. This innovative partnership created in year 2014 has helped organization in diverting 92 tonnes of clinical plastics. Hazardous materials such as cleaning products, water treating chemicals, sterilization, laboratory chemicals, electronics waste, pharmaceuticals, wastes and radiological films forms an important part of model of healthcare delivery. In order to protect the health of community at large and caregivers, it is critical to properly manage these materials. There was expansion of pharmaceutical waste program which was part of chemical disposal program. Expansion of such program was done for creating a responsible disposal by way of capturing all pharmaceutical waste and thereby contributing to prevention of environment contamination (De Soete et al., 2017). In addition to this, there is regulation of medical waste that is generated during the treatment of patients for protecting the public health. Cleveland Clinic appropriately treats all the regulated and hazardous waste generated along with disposing them domestically.

Conclusion:

From the analysis of several green initiatives undertaken by Cleveland Clinic, it can be inferred that organization takes every possible efforts to enhance their sustainability measures and contribute to community and healthcare sector as a whole. The organization is committed to improving environmental management to a high degree by constantly seeking new and innovative ways to meet its goal of achieving sustainable environment. In order to ascertain greater efficiencies, the current approach to maintain sustainability of environment should be assessed by hospital leaders. Implementation of sustainable strategy helps in creating a culture of sustainability by efficient hospitals. However, there should be well alignment between sustainability efforts and its mission and vision.

References list:

Blass, A. P., da Costa, S. E. G., de Lima, E. P., & Borges, L. A. (2017). Measuring environmental performance in hospitals: A practical approach. Journal of Cleaner Production, 142, 279-289.

Bruns-Smith, A., Choy, V., Chong Ph D, H., & Verma Ph D, R. (2015). Environmental sustainability in the hospitality industry: Best practices, guest participation, and customer satisfaction.

Campion, N., Thiel, C. L., Woods, N. C., Swanzy, L., Landis, A. E., & Bilec, M. M. (2015). Sustainable healthcare and environmental life-cycle impacts of disposable supplies: a focus on disposable custom packs. Journal of Cleaner Production, 94, 46-55.

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. (2018). A world-class multispecialty hospital. [online] Available at: https://www.clevelandclinicabudhabi.ae/en/pages/default.aspx [Accessed 17 Jul. 2018].

De Soete, W., Jiménez-González, C., Dahlin, P., & Dewulf, J. (2017). Challenges and recommendations for environmental sustainability assessments of pharmaceutical products in the healthcare sector. Green Chemistry, 19(15), 3493-3509.

Hpoe.org. (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.hpoe.org/Reports-HPOE/ashe-sustainability-report-FINAL.pdf [Accessed 17 Jul. 2018].

Jamieson, M., Wicks, A., & Boulding, T. (2015). Becoming environmentally sustainable in healthcare: an overview. Australian Health Review, 39(4), 417-424.

Klein, K. (2015). Values-based food procurement in hospitals: the role of health care group purchasing organizations. Agriculture and human values, 32(4), 635-648.

Malik, M. M., Abdallah, S., & Hussain, M. (2016). Assessing supplier environmental performance: applying analytical hierarchical process in the United Arab Emirates healthcare chain. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 55, 1313-1321.

Portals.clevelandclinic.org. (2018). Waste Reduction and the UN Global Compact | Cleveland Clinic . [online] Available at: https://portals.clevelandclinic.org/ungc2015/Environment/Waste-Reduction#24483965-waste-segregation–a-cost-reduction-strategy [Accessed 17 Jul. 2018].

Rich, C. R., Singleton, J. K., & Wadhwa, S. S. (2018). Sustainability for healthcare management: a leadership imperative. Routledge.