At first glance “Going Green” seems confusing, complicated, time consuming and appears to raise cost. Let’s take a step back and look at what resources are available to the Supply Chain to help address the need to “Go Green”.   Number one resource is people; by nature healthcare providers are caring people.  Not only are they caring for the patients and communities we serve but for the earth we live on as well.  Number two are our current habits, look around and build on what you already know and are already doing. 

Remember these simple steps:  Listen, Learn & Lead.  Listen: Listen to and challenge your current vendor partners as to what they can introduce to your hospital(s) for some quick “Green Ideas” to get you started (maybe even lower your cost)? Learn:  Learn from your current process and build from there, energy conservation, reprocessing, recycling, auction or donation of surplus equipment, these are all process that we are familiar with that will not require a hard sell to your clinicians or your executive team.  Lead:  Lead by taking a simple, easy to do “Green” process and implement. Then share the results with your other departments’ leaders and they will follow.  Here are some quick start ideas that any Supply Chain can implement and get the “Green” rolling.

Reprocessing:  There are several third party companies that will reprocess the OEM products and provide excellent policies and procedures to get you started.

MFD’s:  These multifunctionals devices can bring some true saving while cutting down

on the waste stream creating by ink jet and low volume dry toner printers.

Sharps Management:  Cost neutral in most cases, but provides a real solution to cutting   staff’s exposure to sharps and greatly reducing the number of plastic containers going into our landfills.

Cardboard Recycling – How simple is sorting cardboard?  Many times a vendor will provide a dumpster at no charge and my split the dollars earned with the hospital.  Bet your foundation would love to have another small stream of cash; this is a good way to accomplish that.

Plastic & Can Recycling – Easy to put these well recognized collection bins through out your facilities and trust me your staff will respond. 

Foam Soap & Sanitizer – By moving to more efficient products, we are now getting 2000 applications vs our old product dispensed 600 applications with very little difference in volume.  In the process we saved some money and increase our handwashing compliance. 

These are but a few of the several hundred, maybe thousands of ideas to “green” your hospital(s).  Other areas to include are your plant operation team with construction or energy saving initiatives, your environmental services team for those products and chemicals that are easy on the environment and of course the dietary team with ideas on packaging and serving of the products that not only keep our bodies healthy, but our environment as well.  Remember keep it simple and just get started and the idea and participation will grow!

Brent Petty  l  Director Supply Chain  l  Wellmont Health System