{"id":8726,"date":"2016-11-03T18:00:06","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T22:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/a-longer-term-view-on-saving-lives\/"},"modified":"2016-11-03T18:00:06","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T22:00:06","slug":"a-longer-term-view-on-saving-lives","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/a-longer-term-view-on-saving-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"A longer-term view on saving lives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Climate change is a public health crisis, and unfortunately the health care sector in the United States is actually disproportionately contributing to the damage. Hospitals are estimated to contribute 8% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.<sup>1<\/sup> Getting more granular, a recent study linked the air pollution emissions produced directly by various health care provider activities as well as the indirect emissions from their suppliers given the integrated nature of the industry.<sup>2 <\/sup>These emissions contribute to a variety of environmental effects ranging from acid rain to carcinogenic chemical exposure, which according to the study translates to the equivalent of 44,000-98,000 deaths (in line with estimates of U.S. hospital deaths from preventable medical errors).<\/p>\n<p>Hospitals require a tremendous amount of energy given the service they provide. Examples of what contributes to energy use in hospital provider settings include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Always being available and functioning to treat patients<\/li>\n<li>Having the ability to adjust to a variety of temperature needs given the differing functions of the rooms in the hospital (e.g., operating rooms tend to be kept very cool)<\/li>\n<li>Using medical devices and other technology as an integral part of providing patient care<\/li>\n<li>Providing patients with basic human needs such as food and laundry for bedding and hospital gowns<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Like other organizations, hospitals necessarily prioritize short-term goals. This is especially important in the health care sector where direct patient care should not be compromised. The core mission of hospitals is to serve patients and this is most measurable by treating the patients that are coming into the hospital. Moreover, malpractice suits contribute to the overutilization of resources by health care providers and thus higher energy use. However, given the impact that the health care sector and especially hospitals are having on the environment, they are an important part of the solution. They will need to balance more efficient energy use with maintaining and hopefully improving the quality of patient care.<\/p>\n<p>Leading hospitals have a responsibility to serve as benchmarks for what can be done. One such hospital is Cleveland Clinic. It is already one of the most renowned health care providers in the U.S. Other hospitals use their operating models as benchmarks for saving costs. Cleveland Clinic has considered the ways in which climate change would affect its operations, including higher demand from a sicker population, increased costs to mitigate against natural disasters or other public health threats, and quality risk of precious natural resources like water.<sup>3 <\/sup><\/p>\n<p>One step that shows commitment to identifying meaningful changes and implementing them is that Cleveland Clinic set up an Office for a Healthy Environment. A few examples of the strategic areas they\u2019ve made progress on include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Designing and building more sustainable buildings \u2013 13 projects certified thus far (e.g., they\u2019ve substituted nearly all incandescent lightbulbs for LED)<sup>4<\/sup><\/li>\n<li>Building waste reduction into processes \u2013 proper waste management and reduced inventory<sup>5<\/sup><\/li>\n<li>Being mindful about their suppliers \u2013 communicated preference for environmentally-friendly product options with suppliers<sup>6 <\/sup>and using their purchasing power to collaborate with suppliers to be more environmentally friendly themselves<sup>7<\/sup><\/li>\n<li>Educating the community \u2013 encouraged community to conserving energy at home<sup>8<\/sup><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Finally, Cleveland Clinic also publishes an annual report on how it\u2019s progressing along the goals it\u2019s committed to as the first healthcare provider to in the U.S. to sign the United Nations Global Compact.<sup>9<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>While Cleveland Clinic is setting the standard for best practices in hospitals to address climate change issues,<sup>10<\/sup> the real change will come from making this change realizable for hospitals that do not have the same level of funding and operational excellence. A barrier for many other hospitals are that they struggle with greater constraints on their budgets and short-term profitability targets. There are many hospitals that have not yet signed up for the 2020 challenge in the U.S.<sup>11<\/sup> The website and press releases surrounding Cleveland Clinic demonstrate the effectiveness of its projects, but there is a large barrier to pushing these initiatives at many hospitals. Given Cleveland Clinic\u2019s reputation and their mission to effect serious change, an additional step they can take is deploying a task force to sign on other health systems to the cause. They can present not only the cost savings to make the business case but also an implementation plan to make this more feasible for other hospitals act on. For example, they can share which suppliers provide low-cost, high quality, sustainable products and educate\/convince physicians at other hospitals to switch to them. Having already done a lot of the leg work, Cleveland Clinic can help lead other hospitals to make progress faster by learning from any mistakes it may have made along the way. Finally, to make this more appealing, this can be bundled with teaching hospitals other best practices that hospitals already pay consultants to help them with.<\/p>\n<p>Word count: 787<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sources:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.triplepundit.com\/2014\/10\/hospitals-stepping-challenge-climate-change\/\">http:\/\/www.triplepundit.com\/2014\/10\/hospitals-stepping-challenge-climate-change\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0157014\">http:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0157014<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/about\">http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/about<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/our-buildings\">http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/our-buildings<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/our-operations\/waste-detail\">http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/our-operations\/waste-detail<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/our-operations\/waste-detail\">http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/our-operations\/waste-detail<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/our-operations\/waste-detail\">http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/our-operations\/waste-detail<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/our-operations\/energy-detail.aspx\">http:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/about-cleveland-clinic\/office-for-healthy-environment\/our-operations\/energy-detail.aspx<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/portals.clevelandclinic.org\/ungc2016\/Reporting\/tabid\/9623\/Default.aspx\">http:\/\/portals.clevelandclinic.org\/ungc2016\/Reporting\/tabid\/9623\/Default.aspx<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.modernhealthcare.com\/article\/20160510\/NEWS\/160519998\">http:\/\/www.modernhealthcare.com\/article\/20160510\/NEWS\/160519998<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenhospitals.net\/2020-participants\/\">http:\/\/www.greenhospitals.net\/2020-participants\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Climate change is a public health crisis, and unfortunately the health care sector in the United States is actually disproportionately contributing to the damage. Hospitals are estimated to contribute 8% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.1 Getting more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1990,"featured_media":8727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[],"class_list":["post-8726","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/climate-change-challenge-2016\/","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A longer-term view on saving lives - Technology and Operations Management<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/a-longer-term-view-on-saving-lives\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A longer-term view on saving lives - Technology and Operations Management\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Climate change is a public health crisis, and unfortunately the health care sector in the United States is actually disproportionately contributing to the damage. 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