Sr. Mary Ellen Leciejewski, OP, doesn't know why it is that, at some point in the past, someone decreed that bedpans should be mauve.
She just knows they don't need to be. In fact, the assemblage of plastic items used daily at the patient's bedside don't need to have color at all, and the dyes used in manufacturing the products can harm the environment, explained Sr. Leciejewski, ecology program coordinator for Dignity Health.
And that's why her employer has begun using dye-free bedpans, washbasins, water pitchers and other items commonly found in patient rooms. Earlier this year, San Francisco-based Dignity Health announced it would use only pigment-free plastics in all 40 of its hospitals and its other care centers. It was the first health system in the nation to adopt the practice systemwide, although more than 100 hospitals have decided to follow suit, according to Medline Industries, the manufacturer of the new pigment-free products now in use in Dignity facilities.
Clear alternative
Pigment-free products are better for the environment because they eliminate the need for potentially harmful chemicals used during manufacturing, the company says. Based on Dignity's annual usage of these plastics, an estimated 1.3 tons of pigment will be avoided, preventing those chemicals from leaching into the soil and groundwater.
"We were talking to the company," Sr. Leciejewski said, "and we asked, 'Does the dye do anything? Does it make the plastic stronger?' And they said, 'No. It doesn't.'"
The contract with Medline will cost the nation's fifth largest hospital system about $1 million a year — no more and no less than buying colored plastics, she said.
Sr. Leciejewski said dye-free plastic hospital supplies were not available until recently, another example of how the movement to make hospitals more environmentally sustainable has gained momentum since she came to Dignity (formerly Catholic Healthcare West) in 1996.
"Years ago, we had to encourage the suppliers to move in certain directions, and it may or may not have happened," she said. "But now companies are coming to us and saying, 'Look at this product. It's sustainable. It's green.' Now we have a bit more to choose from, and I think that's a very exciting turnaround."
Moving markets
Hospitals have a major impact on the communities where they operate and on the supply chain. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the '24-7' operation of acute care hospitals affects the environment in many ways, including: waste (estimated at about 7,000 tons per day); use of potentially toxic materials like mercury, polyvinyl chloride, Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, and the heavy metals in electronics; massive energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions; and significant water usage.
When Sr. Leciejewski began work in this field, she said, very few hospitals were giving much thought to sustainability. Now, she said, environmental sustainability is becoming ingrained in the U.S. health care system. And, she adds, that's better for everyone.
"Our hearts got a little bit wider when we did this," she said. "We realized that everything is connected, and that includes the air, the water, the soil. If we want our patients to be healthy, if we want to be healthy, we knew we had to look after the health of the planet."
One way hospitals can have a major impact on the environment is to use their significant purchasing power to influence manufacturers to develop greener products. According to Practice Greenhealth, a nonprofit group that advocates for sustainable health care products and processes, the health care industry spends more than $20 billion annually on medical and nonmedical products.
Sr. Leciejewski is aware of that clout and has helped Dignity exercise it in a number of ways. In 2005, Dignity Health switched to intravenous bags made without phthalates, chemicals that make plastic flexible but have been linked to a variety of health problems. Since 2009, the health system has been pressuring food suppliers to provide meat, dairy products and foods that are not the product of genetic engineering. Dignity also joined Just Label It, a national coalition dedicated to the mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods.
Alternative energy
Dignity also is working to reduce energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions through conservation efforts and an increased emphasis on renewables, said Jeff Land, Dignity's vice president of corporate real estate. The best results have occurred since 2011, when Dignity set a goal of 20 percent energy reduction by 2020.
"Using 2010 as a baseline, we have saved $2 million through our sustainable efforts, reduced energy intensity 2.1 percent, increased our renewable-energy sources to 13.7 percent of total energy consumption, and reduced greenhouse-gas emissions 11.7 percent within one year," Land said. "We currently have 11 cogeneration engines operating at seven hospitals, one landfill gas generation plant, and one photovoltaic system." Photovoltaics have to do with converting light into electricity at the atomic level.
Also by 2020, Dignity hopes to source 35 percent of its systemwide energy use from renewables, and reduce overall greenhouse-gas emissions by 40 percent.
In the meantime, Sr. Leciejewski keeps searching for new ways to make Dignity's operations better for the environment. She has plenty of support these days. Dignity is a cofounder of the Healthier Hospitals Initiative, a national campaign aimed at improving environmental health and promoting sustainable practices. And, she said, she has Dignity employees, many of whom are active on hospital-based environmental action committees.
"We have lots of people who are very passionate about this. They want to do what is best for this hospital, this region, for the planet," she said. "They are thinking of their kids, their grandkids, thinking of themselves. They know that it's really in those small daily choices that each of them makes that our world is created."
Copyright © 2012 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
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