The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) yesterday hosted the Healthier Hospitals Initiative (HHI) for a discussion celebrating the health care industry’s innovative success in adopting more sustainable practices. The event, “Greening America’s Hospitals,” specifically highlighted HHI’s successful efforts to reduce the environmental footprint of hospitals, lower costs and improve patient health by incorporating environmental sustainability initiatives into their business models.
In addition to HHI and CEQ, senior Administration officials, hospital administrators, business leaders and policy experts lent their perspectives to the discussion. The discussion included two panels, “Fostering a Culture of Environmental Sustainability” and “Healthier Hospitals Initiative: Transforming the Supply Chain.” The panelists included:
- Gary Cohen, President, Health Care Without Harm, and Founder of the Healthier Hospitals Initiative
- Kathy Gerwig, Vice President, Workplace Safety and Environmental Stewardship Officer, Kaiser Permanente
- Al Iannuzzi, Senior Director Product Stewardship, Worldwide Environment, Health and Safety at Johnson & Johnson
- John Messervy, AIA, Director of Capital and Facilities Planning, Partners HealthCare
- Brad Perkins, MD, Executive Vice President for Strategy & Innovation, & Chief Transformation Officer, Vanguard Health Systems
- Blair Sadler, Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement; former CEO of Rady Children’s Hospital
- J. Knox Singleton, CEO, Inova Health System
- Jeff Thompson, MD, CEO, Gundersen Health System
- Christina Vernon, Executive Sustainability Officer, Cleveland Clinic
- Seema Wadhwa, Director, Healthier Hospitals Initiative
Several senior officials of the Obama Administration were on hand to spotlight HHI’s effective approaches to implementing sustainability initiatives that reduce costs and improve patient care in health care facilities across the country. Officials included:
- Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change
- Maria Vargas, Director of the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Initiative
- Bicky Corman, Deputy Associate Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Policy
- Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality
- Jon Carson, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement
For more information about HHI’s efforts, read Gary Cohen’s blog post, “Promoting Sustainable Health Care,” on the White House’s website.
A recording of the event is available on the White House’s YouTube channel.