Hospitals embrace sustainable engineering

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Hospital buildings withstand unrelenting 24/7 demands and exceedingly high expectations to provide a safe and healthy environment for patients and employees. Leading health care systems now recognize that to provide the highest quality care, they need to contribute to the health of their communities both inside and outside the hospital walls. Part of this effort requires taking action to use resources as efficiently as possible, and energy is the most significant target.

Forward thinking hospitals are making energy efficiency a cornerstone of their sustainability policies.

Given that hospitals have high energy demands for heating and cooling; ventilation and lighting; and plug loads, they consume almost twice the energy per square foot as traditional office space and produce more than 30 pounds of CO2 per square foot.

For health care organizations, becoming more energy efficient can lower costs and increase revenues. The cost savings from sustainability programs at health care systems are well documented. Most energy efficiency investments yield returns of 10 percent or more, while many of the efficiency practices are no-cost/low-cost improvements.

Over the next two years, health care engineers across the Northwest region are joining together to support the American Society for Healthcare Engineering Region 10 Energy Efficiency Commitment.

This campaign works in partnership with the nonprofit Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance’s BetterBricks initiative, local utilities and state society of health care engineering chapters including our own Oregon Society for Healthcare Engineering. The campaign’s participants commit to benchmarking their energy use for two years using Energy Star’s Portfolio Manager and working on low-cost or no-cost operational improvements to achieve energy savings. The goal of program is to demonstrate an overall reduction of 10 percent in energy consumption in health care facilities across the Northwest by the end of 2011.

Benchmarking a health care facility’s energy use is a key first step toward managing energy use and identifying areas where an organization can work to save energy. The second step is often in low-cost or no-cost operational improvements. Cost reductions from tune-ups of energy related systems and improved operations and maintenance practices in hospitals typically garner 10 percent to 20 percent energy cost reductions. With a return on investment that can be as high as 300 percent, these measures can quickly save energy and reduce costs.

There is no doubt that sustainability is a major force to be reckoned with — one that will determine how health care systems think, act, manage and compete. This is evidenced by the more than 70 health care facilities throughout the Northwest that have signed on to ASHE’s Region 10 Energy Efficiency Commitment.

It is time for health care systems to boldly embrace sustainability and resource management and make effective changes that lead to a stronger balance sheet and a healthy planet.

Bob Ingber is the president, Oregon Society for Healthcare Engineering and facilities manager at Legacy Meridian Park Hospital. To learn more about Legacy Health’s commitment to sustainability, read this case study from NEEA’s BetterBricks initiative.