{"id":25404,"date":"2017-11-15T19:50:28","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T00:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/tenet-health-fighting-the-climate-change-fever\/"},"modified":"2017-11-15T19:50:28","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T00:50:28","slug":"tenet-health-fighting-the-climate-change-fever","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/tenet-health-fighting-the-climate-change-fever\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenet Health: Fighting the Climate Change Fever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tenet Health, as one of the largest integrated healthcare management companies in America operating 77 hospitals and 500 outpatient centers, has a responsibility to lead the healthcare services industry toward sustainable solutions as global warming causes drastic climate change over the next 10 years. [1] As temperatures, carbon emissions, and incidence of catastrophic weather events rise, the population\u2019s health issues rise in tandem. [2] COPD issues are projected to rise as a result of air quality degradation. [2] Heat related strokes and deaths will increase as temperatures trend upward. [3] Stronger and more frequent storms, hurricanes, and droughts will drive hospital admissions higher and strain capacity, all while increasing injuries and deaths. [2]<\/p>\n<p>Tenet has the opportunity to adapt their supply chain not only to efficiently address these health concerns, but also so as to help mitigate the company\u2019s contribution to global warming. By transitioning their nearly 600 facilities to energy efficient, environmentally conscious operations, Tenet can both increase positive health outcomes in the community as well as realizing a share of the resulting savings. In a recent study, Duke University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies estimated that \u201ccutting GHG emissions (and thus pollution from fossil-fuel burning) could prevent 295,000 premature deaths in the U.S. by 2030. Near-term annual health benefits are estimated to be $250 billion per year.\u201d [4]<\/p>\n<p>Tenet has created a Sustainability Advisory Council at the corporate level, and \u201cGreen Teams\u201d at each individual hospital to create awareness and enact initiatives around the Healthier Hospitals Initiative metrics. [5] Tenet has put in place goals for the following programs:<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Short term goals (next 2 years):<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Engaged Leadership (5)\n<ul>\n<li>Educate and raise awareness in each facility and hospital leadership team around sustainability initiatives and gameplan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Healthier Food (6)\n<ul>\n<li>Reduce meat purchased by 10% per year OR achieve ultimate goal of an average 1.5 oz per meal served.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Leaner Energy (7)\n<ul>\n<li>Reduce greenhouse gases by decreasing weather-adjusted energy intensity from metered energy use by three percent from baseline.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Less Waste (8)\n<ul>\n<li>Reduce Regulated Medical Waste to either less than 10 percent of total waste or less than 8 tons per operating room per year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Safer Chemicals (9)\n<ul>\n<li>Green Cleaning: Inventory cleaning products and purchase 90% Green Seal or UL ECOLOGO certified cleaning products<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Smarter Purchasing (10)\n<ul>\n<li>Surgical kit review: Review and reformulate (where appropriate) at least 80 percent of total O.R. kit types.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><u>Medium term goals (3-10 years):<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Engaged Leadership (5)\n<ul>\n<li>Commit to success on all 5 metrics listed below.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Healthier Food (6)\n<ul>\n<li>Increase by 5% per year or achieve ultimate goal of 20% of meat and poultry purchases raised without the routine use of antibiotics. Increase the percentage of local food purchases by 5 percent annually OR achieve ultimate goal of 20 percent of total.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Leaner Energy (7)\n<ul>\n<li>Reduce greenhouse gases by decreasing weather-adjusted energy intensity from metered energy use by ten percent from baseline.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Less Waste (8)\n<ul>\n<li>Short term goal plus: Achieve a 15 percent recycling rate compared to total waste.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Safer Chemicals (9)\n<ul>\n<li>Short term goal plus: DEHP and PVC Reduction: Eliminate DEHP and PVC from at least two product categories.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Smarter Purchasing (10)\n<ul>\n<li>Short term goal plus: Single use device reprocessing- collect and purchase 20 percent reprocessed non-invasive devices compared to total. Greener Electronics: Specify, purchase, and report expenditures on greener electronics with a goal of 80 percent registered with EPEAT.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Tenet is on the right trajectory with these initiatives ramping up over the next 10 years. Every initiative that the company has enacted will return threefold: in retarding the overall advance of climate change by switching to greener purchasing and operating activities, in actively contributing to the health of current patients and staff by serving sustainable food and controlling chemical waste, and in expanding Tenet\u2019s capacity to treat and serve future patients by ensuring the efficiency of the corporation.<\/p>\n<p>Tenet can now begin to focus on how the enterprise can best serve the projected rising health victims of climate change: Tenet should continue to expand and diversify its points of service, by buying and building more low-cost access points like urgent care centers and short stay hospitals. The company should invest in flexible capacity beds to prepare for volume surges related to storms and heat waves. Finally, Tenet should ensure that it employs a diverse and comprehensive staff of physicians and other healthcare providers, so as to be ready for any sudden rise in negative health outcomes as a result of climate change.<\/p>\n<p>Questions remain regarding how large integrated healthcare companies like Tenet can endure the current pricing pressure in the industry which demand leaner operations, successfully enact their sustainability objectives, and stay ready to ramp services to meet increasing demand in the face of climate change.<\/p>\n<p>(797 words)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sources<\/p>\n<p>[1] <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hbs.edu\/environment\/climate-change\/climate-change-101\/Pages\/climate-change-selected-indicators.aspx\">http:\/\/www.hbs.edu\/environment\/climate-change\/climate-change-101\/Pages\/climate-change-selected-indicators.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>[2] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability &#8211; Summary for Policymakers (2014)<\/p>\n<p>[3] Risky Business Project, Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States (2014)<\/p>\n<p>[4] Risky Business Project, From Risk to Return: Investing in a Clean Energy Economy (2015)<\/p>\n<p>[5] \u201cTenet Healthcare Corporation | Green Team Development.\u201d Healthier Hospitals Initiative, www.healthierhospitals.org\/get-inspired\/success-stories\/tenet-healthcare-corporation-green-team-development.<\/p>\n<p>[6] \u201cEngaged Leadership.\u201d Engaged Leadership | Healthier Hospitals Initiative, http:\/\/healthierhospitals.org\/hhi-challenges\/engaged-leadership.<\/p>\n<p>[7] \u201cHealthier Food.\u201d Healthier Food | Healthier Hospitals Initiative, \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/healthierhospitals.org\/hhi-challenges\/healthier-food\">http:\/\/healthierhospitals.org\/hhi-challenges\/healthier-food<\/a><\/p>\n<p>[8] \u201cLeaner Energy.\u201d Leaner Energy | Healthier Hospitals Initiative, <a href=\"http:\/\/healthierhospitals.org\/hhi-challenges\/leaner-energy\">http:\/\/healthierhospitals.org\/hhi-challenges\/leaner-energy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>[9] \u201cLess Waste.\u201d Less Waste | Healthier Hospitals Initiative, <a href=\"http:\/\/healthierhospitals.org\/hhi-challenges\/less-waste\">http:\/\/healthierhospitals.org\/hhi-challenges\/less-waste<\/a><\/p>\n<p>[10] \u201cSafer Chemicals.\u201d Safer Chemicals | Healthier Hospitals Initiative, <a href=\"http:\/\/healthierhospitals.org\/hhi-challenges\/safer-chemicals\">http:\/\/healthierhospitals.org\/hhi-challenges\/safer-chemicals<\/a><\/p>\n<p>[11] \u201cSmarter Purchasing.\u201d Smarter Purchasing | Healthier Hospitals Initiative, <a href=\"http:\/\/healthierhospitals.org\/hhi-challenges\/smarter-purchasing\">http:\/\/healthierhospitals.org\/hhi-challenges\/smarter-purchasing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tenet Health is actively adapating to and mitigating the impacts of climate change at the forefront of the healthcare industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9933,"featured_media":25405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[1218],"class_list":["post-25404","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change","hck-taxonomy-organization-tenet-health","hck-taxonomy-industry-health","hck-taxonomy-country-united-states"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/rc-tom-challenge-2017\/","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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