HHI was launched by twelve hospital systems — Advocate Health Care, Bon Secours Health System, Catholic Health Initiatives, Dignity Health, Hospital Corporation of America, Inova Health System, Kaiser Permanente, MedStar Health, Partners HealthCare, Stanford University Medical Center, Tenet Health Systems and Vanguard Health Systems — along with Practice Greenhealth, Health Care Without Harm and the Center for Health Design, in May 2010.
HHI is a coordinated sector-wide approach based on the premise that how we design, build and operate hospitals can improve patient outcomes and workplace safety, prevent illnesses, create environmental benefits and save money.
“With HHI, hospitals use their collective experience and proven strategies to lead their communities in developing mitigation and resiliency programs for responding to environment-related health issues.” said Gary Cohen, president of Health Care Without Harm and Founder of HHI. “To achieve widespread adoption, we must come together with the support of organizations like California Hospital Association to show this is both a sound business decision and the right thing to do for improved public health and reduced environmental impact.”
“The California Hospital Association’s vision is ‘an optimally healthy society,'” stated C. Duane Dauner, president and CEO. “The Healthier Hospitals Initiative plays an important role in helping to realize that vision by encouraging better environmental stewardship, as well as promoting the health and wellness of patients and staff in California hospitals. The collective stewardship efforts of California’s more than 400 hospitals and health systems will propel California to lead the nation towards an optimally healthy society.”
The leading hospital systems, supporting organizations and healthcare facilities work together to accelerate the use of proven sustainability practices in six key “challenge” areas:
- Engaged leadership
- Healthier food
- Leaner energy
- Less waste
- Safer chemicals
- Smarter purchasing
Success will be measured and tracked with aggregate data that can be sorted by state or hospital type — data that will be of great use for demonstrating success.
HHI supporting organizations support the goals of the Healthier Hospitals Initiative and seek opportunities to share information with organization members and associates. The green movement in healthcare is completely in concert with any organization’s mission of improving the health and well-being of their community and promoting effective stewardship of human and financial resources.
Learn more about the Healthier Hospitals Initiative at http://www.healthierhospitals.org.
