Low-Carbon Resilient Power for Hospitals in the Near Future. Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems are of high interest for their ability to provide resilient power to health care facilities. On April 20th, The Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care hosted a webinar focusing on the EU's Horizon program on powering CHP with alternative energy systems specifically designed for European hospitals, and what is happening in Canada on CHP.  If you missed the webinar, you can download the slides and watch the recording here. 

Click here to learn more about the €1 million contest and what the EU is doing to encourage low carbon resiliency using non-fossil fuels to power cogen systems. Canadian health care facilities interested in purchasing cogen now should ask venders if systems can convert to other forms of fuel (i.e. from renewable sources) if needed. 

Canadian Hospitals Going Green.

Congratulations to the following organisations for taking action on going Green!  St. Mary’s General Hospital has taken delivery of 20 BioFree toilet seats complete with AereusShieldTM fast-acting, tarnish-resistant copper coating. This is the fourth Engineered Infection Prevention (EIP) technology the hospital has adopted. Other measures include Mobile UV, AutoUV, and Ice Zone. Kudos to Roger Holliss, Director of Engineering, for his leadership. Collingwood General & Marine Hospital installed a number of the innovative new SmartFLO3 sinks in their new Emergency Department renovations. They also included AutoUV surface disinfection and BioZone UV air disinfection in the ED public bathroom. Read more from CHAIR here.

Prescribing Active Travel for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet: A Toolkit for Health Professionals. Walking, cycling, and taking public transportation are great ways to fit physical activity into a busy schedule. CAPE’s new toolkit  Prescribing Active Travel for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet: A Toolkit for Health Professionals will help health professionals become advocates of active transportation and transit with their patients and in their communities. The toolkit is designed with five stand-alone modules so people can focus on the ones of most interest to them, and includes two fact sheets and brochures that health professionals can give to their patients, two backgrounders that can be used in meetings with the public or decision-makers, and a series of memes that can be used on Twitter or Facebook to make people think about the many benefits of walking, cycling, and transit for society as a whole. Read more.

Canada racks up LEED milestone. With a cumulative total of almost 3,000 LEED projects, Canada has been recognized as a top performing country by the U.S. Green Building Council for the third year in a row. This total also represents over one billion square feet in LEED-certified space — a major milestone for the Canadian green building industry. The numbers tell the story: 406 projects achieved LEED certification in 2016. Of these, 30 earned Platinum certification, 152 earned Gold, 154 earned Silver and 70 earned Certified status. By province, Ontario led LEED-certified projects in 2016 with 147, followed by Quebec (103), British Columbia (62), Alberta (61) and Manitoba (10).  Read more. 

Midland manufacturer innovating how sinks work in hospitals. If you have a stainless steel sink in your kitchen, there's a good chance it was made at Franke Kindred in Midland. The company has been manufacturing sinks for 55 years. The process has changed little in that time, but the company is looking to the future and for ways to boost sales in the United States. A rather new innovation developed at the plant is a sink created specially for hospitals. It has no faucet, knobs or levers and is designed to reduce splashing. Behind the cover it has a built in ozonator. “Infusing the water with ozone, it actually kills bacteria, both on the patients hands and the sinks surface, and most importantly in the drain,” says Shaun Desroches, VP of marketing for the Franke. Read more. 

World First: Antimicrobial Copper Ducts Installed in US Operating Theatres.  In a world first, the University of Miami Lennar Foundation Medical Center has installed antimicrobial copper ductwork throughout its eight operating theatres. Manufactured by US company Polar Air, the ductwork takes advantage of copper's well-known antimicrobial properties, helping to suppress the growth of mould, mildew and bacteria that cause odours, damage systems and reduce their efficiency. This is particularly beneficial for controlled air spaces such as operating theatres. "Alongside the benefits offered to patients and staff, the best aspect of the copper ductwork is that it doesn’t cost any more than rigid duct, with insulation," adds Jon Bell, President of Polar Air Supply. "You get the added hygienic benefits of copper for no extra cost. It’s a no-brainer." Read more. 

Health system deploys copper-infused surfaces to decrease infections. Sentara Healthcare is in the midst of a system-wide rollout of copper-infused linens, patient gowns and hard surfaces for all inpatient rooms at its 12 hospitals. The move is part of an effort to reduce health care-associated infections in its Virginia and North Carolina hospitals, and follows the results of a 10-month study published in the  American Journal of Infection Control last fall. The study compared pathogen rates of two patient towers at Sentara Leigh Hospital in Norfolk, VA. One of the towers was razed and replaced in 2014 and fitted with a host of copper-infused products for such high-touch objects as bedrails, bedside tables and linens. The other was given the same treatment in 2015. The results from the clinical trial showed that hard surfaces and linens infused with copper-oxide compounds contributed to an 83 percent reduction in  Clostridium difficile and a 78 percent overall reduction in multidrug-resistant organisms, including  C. difficile as well as methicillin-resistant  Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococci, in a real-world clinical environment. Read more. 

Practice Greenhealth Announces Winners of Top 25 Environmental Excellence Awards. Practice Greenhealth, the USA’s leading nonprofit membership and networking organization for sustainable health care, has announced the winners of its annual Top 25 Environmental Excellence Awards.The award recognizes 25 health care facilities that exemplify the best in environmental excellence, and the highest standards for environmental practices in health care. Click here to see the winners.

Stamford Hospital aims to go Green with new building. As they prepared to observe Earth Day this last week, hospital officials said environmental awareness in their institution’s flagship 650,000-square-foot structure that opened last September is no gimmick. Hospital officials point to sustainability features as key to keeping costs down and creating a healthier and more welcoming experience for patients. Designing the hospital’s $450 million headquarters offered the opportunity to design a campus that would improve from top to bottom on the environmental efficiency of the old building. Hospital officials expected to run a new building that would use 12 percent less in utilities than comparably sized hospitals — an efficiency target they said they are already exceeding. Read more.

BWMC: New power plant to save hospital $750K per year. Baltimore Washington Medical Center says its new power plant will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save the hospital about $750,000 in annual energy costs. The cogeneration power plant — one of the first of its kind in the county  — cost about $8 million and took roughly 14 months to install, hospital officials said. The plant began running in January and, after some tweaks, it's fully operational. Cogeneration power plants make electricity that enables waste heat — a byproduct of creating electricity — to be repurposed. This green energy will power the hospital's lights and machines in the operating rooms, and the waste heat will heat BWMC year-round. The system is also powered by natural gas, as opposed to burning diesel fuel to make electricity. Read more. 

4 ways increasing energy efficiency reduces unexpected maintenance and costs. One big challenge businesses face is preparing for the unexpected. Uncertainty can take many forms, and all can pose a great risk to a business. Some events, such as swings in the economy, changes in regulations, and a moving political landscape, are beyond the control for most businesses. However, there are other areas of risk where business preparedness can lessen the effect of an unforeseen event, and the financial burden that comes with it. One area in which businesses can exercise control is their energy usage. Read more.