HSHS St. Elizabeth’s Hospital receives Practice Greenhealth Partner for Change Award
From Illinois Business Journal news services
BELLEVILLE — HSHS St. Elizabeth’s Hospital has been awarded the 2015 “Greenhealth Partner for Change” Award by Practice Greenhealth, a national networking organization that urges health-care institutions to commit to eco-friendly practices.
The award is one the organization gives each year to honor outstanding environmental achievements in the health-care sector.
The Greenhealth Partner for Change Award recognizes facilities that continuously improve and expand upon their mercury elimination, waste reduction, recycling and source reduction programs. At a minimum, facilities applying for the award must be recycling 15 percent of their total waste, have reduced regulated medical waste, are well along the way to mercury elimination, and have developed other successful pollution prevention programs in many different areas.
During the award time frame (2014), St. Elizabeth’s Hospital:
• held two electronic recycling events that netted more than 500 pounds of electronic equipment from colleagues and the local community.
• redeployed another 400 pounds of used computer equipment through donations to local non-profit organizations.
• recycled 160 tons of waste, and
• reduced total pharmaceutical waste by 16 percent and hazardous waste by 6 percent from the previous year.
In addition, St. Elizabeth’s increased the number of people involved in data collection and participation in the actual application process. This increased awareness of the environmentally focused objectives and resulted in accurate and consistent reporting.
“As a Practice Greenhealth Partner for Change Award recipient, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital is committed to improving the health of our patients, colleagues, and community as a whole,” said Maryann Reese, president and chief executive officer of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. “We take pride in our sustainability efforts to lessen our impact on the environment and look forward to working with Practice Greenhealth to continue this work across the country.”
The Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards were presented May 14 in Portland, Ore., at the CleanMed Conference & Exhibition.
To learn more about Practice Greenhealth visit www.practicegreenhealth.org.
