Going Green

Like personal computers, advanced health care technologies often become outdated before the first time the power button glows orange. Most health care facilities cannot afford to replace expensive, advanced modalities with newer, fancier versions as quickly as they are produced. Even so, by the time a facility is ready to bring in replacement units, most outgoing equipment is not so much “old” as merely, but undeniably, obsolete. So, where do all of those outmoded but still functional medical products and systems—those brave little toasters—go?

Oftentimes, the equipment is donated to educational or relief institutions. At Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland, Calif, an equipment-reuse program netted the facility $53,500 and included 10 truckloads of equipment donated to international relief programs. Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo, Mich, last year donated 9 tons of medical equipment and furniture to local and international agencies.

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and Bronson Methodist Hospital are two of eight health care facilities that in April received Environmental Leadership Awards from the Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) program. H2E is a joint project of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the American Hospital Association, the American Nurses Association, and Health Care Without Harm. The leadership awards recognized not only those facilities’ medical equipment-recycling programs, but also their efforts to eliminate the use of mercury in health care, reduce health care waste, and phase out the use of hazardous substances and persistent, bio-accumulative, and toxic chemicals.
The other six award winners were Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH; Foote Health System, Jackson, Mich; Kaiser Permanente Hawaii Region, Honolulu; Sparrow Health System, Lansing, Mich; St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Ann Arbor, Mich; and University of Michigan Hospitals & Health Centers, Ann Arbor, Mich.

Think your hospital should be commended for its pollution-reduction efforts? Check out the H2E Web site at www.h2e-online.org for information on how to partner with the program.

Want to find out more about how your department can help prevent pollution? You can start by educating yourself on where used medical equipment goes. One way that clinical/biomedical engineering departments can help reduce environmental waste, according to Laura Brannen, director of H2E, is to advocate medical equipment-donation programs. Biomeds also can further H2E’s mission by ensuring during preventive maintenance cycles that mercury-containing sphygmomanometers and thermometers are replaced with alternative types, Brannen says. She also urges biomeds to get involved in the equipment-acquisition process, especially for imaging systems, to promote the purchase of environmentally responsible systems.

I often hear that you feel the highest level of job satisfaction when you can see that your actions directly impact the health of a patient. By promoting waste reduction and equipment recycling, you advance not only patient health but also public health.

kstephens@ascendmedia.com