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Jennifer Kovacs Silvis, brand director of Healthcare Design magazine, assembled an expert panel during a Keynote Owners Panel session at the 2023 Healthcare Design Conference + Expo held in New Orleans early November to assess its current state.
Rame Hemstreet, Vice President of Operations for National Facilities Services at Kaiser Permanente; Mary Dickinson, Regional Director for Regenerative Design Principal at Perkins+Will; and Jonathan Hunley, System Director for Facilities Infrastructure at Bon Secours Mercy Health were present for this discussion.
Together they held a candid, insightful dialogue on their respective organizations’ short and long-term objectives, the challenges associated with greening operations, and the role design and designers can play in supporting this effort.
Healthcare Design Conference 2023: Integrating Sustainability into Healthcare Design
Dickinson reported having more discussions with clients regarding standards and system-wide approaches to sustainability. “We’re now starting to talk at scale,” she noted, attributing this increase to demand for information regarding companies’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) activities as well as growing awareness of sustainability rating systems and carbon challenges.
At Bon Secours Mercy Health, Hunley reported that Mercy Health’s focus is on setting standards and understanding its carbon footprint. Without knowing exactly how to meet goals, goals can’t be set, according to Hunley.
Kaiser Permanente, which has long been at the forefront of sustainable design within healthcare, recently set its sights on reducing its embodied carbon emissions (the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted during extraction, production and transport processes) while simultaneously building zero emission facilities.
Electrifying Healthcare: Advancements in Electrification within the Health Sector
Healthcare organizations are taking steps to be energy efficient through measures like electrification, solar panel grids and energy-saving building systems. Unfortunately, the panel recognized some challenges faced by healthcare organizations when trying to achieve such larger goals such as resource availability and finding experts with whom they can work closely on programs that can manage energy use efficiently.
Hunley notes, however, that all this costs money hospitals do not possess.
Hemstreet commented that the Inflation Reduction Act passed under the Biden Administration is stimulating innovation for climate solutions while offering tax credits, which encourage smaller nonprofit systems and facilities to consider eco-friendly options when selecting projects and facilities.
