Welcome to the MDH2E February 2012 News Roundup!

This month has brought warm weather and cool sustainability initiatives!

This edition includes updates on:

• The Maryland Health Care Sustainability Leadership Council
• UMMC’s Trailblazer Education Event: Energy Conservation – March 1
• Eco Hospital Jeopardy!
• Hospital Earth Day Activities
• MedStar Harbor Hospital’s Fresh Start on Recycling
• MedStar’s System-Wide Environmental Leadership Council
• Civista Medical Center’s Green Team Webpage
• Kaiser Permanente Purchasing PVC- and DEHP-free IV bags
• Chemotherapy Drugs Put Nurses at Doubled Risk for Miscarriage
• Nursing Updates
• Pharmaceutical Waste Updates
• Sustainable Food Updates
• And much, MUCH more!

Enjoy, and please let us know what’s going green at your facility!

Best,

The MD H2E Team

Looking for a low-cost, high yield green program for your hospital, which will benefit patients and staff alike? Come to University of Maryland Medical Center for a FREE event on March 1^st to learn easy changes you can make!

Trailblazer Education Series

ENERGY CONSERVATION

University of Maryland Medical Center with BGE—March 1st, 9-11 am

The green initiatives started by hospitals not only reduce our impact on the planet – they can cut costs, create goodwill with the community, and improve employee health and morale!

Which is exactly what University of Maryland Medical Center has done. Last year UMMC made a thorough assessment of its lighting needs and made comprehensive changes:

Turn off lights when not in use, use daylight when it’s sufficient, replace inefficient light bulbs with more efficient ones, install occupancy sensors and photo cell sensors, and establish a baseline to monitor changes. UMMC listened to nurses and implemented a quiet/low light time on patient floors! 

Learn from UMMC staff on programmatic issues and hear from Baltimore Gas & Electric on available grants and rebates to implement energy conservation programs.

To learn more, go to http://mdh2e.org/awards-recognition/2011-trailblazer-awards/

To register for this FREE event, please send your name, title, facility name, e-mail, and phone to Englund@son.umaryland.edu. Please RSVP by February 24^th.

Attendance is open to all. However, priority will be given to hospital and health care employees when limitations occur.

News Release

For Immediate Release: January 19, 2012

Contact:  Louise Mitchell

Phone:    443.257.3209

Lmitc001@son.umaryland.edu

 Hospitals Across the Region Increase

Local, Sustainable Food Purchases in 2011,
More Growth Predicted for 2012

Baltimore, MD:  Over 40 hospitals in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Northern Virginia are now purchasing locally grown fruits and vegetables regularly during the growing season, and nine hospitals are now consistently purchasing meat or poultry produced by local farmers who use sustainable agricultural practices. According to Louise Mitchell, sustainable foods program manager of Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (MD H2E), the result has been healthier hospital food, increased financial viability for local farmers and the local economy, and a healthier environment for local communities.

“Incorporating more local and sustainable foods requires a modification of the traditional purchasing practices of hospitals,” said Mitchell, also one of the regional organizers of Health Care Without Harm’s Healthy Food in Health Care Program. “Leading hospitals in this region deserve a lot of credit for their persistence, determination and strategic thinking on how to make it work.”

Campaigns such as the Buy Local Challenge and the “less meat, better meat” Balanced Menus Challenge by Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) offered hospitals opportunities to pilot new purchasing initiatives. Forty hospitals spent nearly $30,000 on local foods in one week during the Buy Local Challenge in July 2011, twice the amount purchased during the same week in 2010 and translating to at least $60,000 of positive impact on the local economy.  Highest purchases for the week included Union Hospital of Cecil County at $5,482, Meritus Medical Center at $2,187 and Civista Medical Center at $1,841. And while most hospitals focused their purchases on local fruits and vegetables, nine hospitals launched or increased the more complex process of purchasing meat or poultry produced by local farmers using sustainable agricultural practices and three others piloted such programs, the focus of the Balanced Menus Challenge.  HCWH defines sustainable agricultural practices for meat and poultry as being raised, at a minimum, without the routine use of antibiotics, without arsenic additives or added growth hormones, and ideally, raised outside on pasture.

“We served local pasture-raised beef from Quiet Meadow Farm in our cafeteria as a pilot project and received rave reviews from our employees.  They loved the quality and the taste,” said Rick Haefner, Food and Nutrition Service Director at Calvert Memorial Hospital in Prince Frederick, Maryland.  “We are now exploring ways to add this beef to our menu more regularly in 2012.”
Hospitals like Calvert Memorial are implementing best practices and cost-saving strategies used by leading institutions, which were highlighted at events and trainings held by MD H2E last year. A day-long conference last May entitled “Local Sustainable Meat & Poultry – Making the Shift in Institutional Purchasing” featured food service directors from hospitals, schools and universities in this region and around the country sharing their successful local sustainable meat and poultry purchasing programs.

The Chefs and Cooks Training last October shared both the “why” and the “how” of working with local, sustainable meat and poultry, which often includes revising patient and cafeteria menus to reduce the total amount of meat and use less familiar cuts of meat in order to manage costs.   “We’re seeing a growing demand from our employees, medical residents, students, and visitors for these local grass-fed meats produced without antibiotics and other additives,” said Tiffany Hightower, operations manager of the food and nutrition services department at George Washington University Hospital.  “We learned many useful strategies at the Chefs and Cooks Training last Fall and we’re starting to take steps to integrate them into our menus.”

Hospitals’ Efforts Are Aided by Developments Throughout the Local Food System

At the same time, the growth of local food purchasing by hospitals has also been facilitated by changes in other segments of the local food system and by resources provided by other critical players in the food chain, laying the groundwork for greater advances in local sustainable meat and poultry purchasing by hospitals in 2012:

• Distributors now carry sustainable meat and poultry raised by local producers
• Quality improvement and group purchasing organization Premier healthcare alliance now has Murray’s Chicken, raised in Pennsylvania without antibiotics or arsenic additives, available to their member hospitals around the country
• The Maryland Department of Agriculture launched a new food safety certification program that certifies small-scale Maryland farmers to process and sell their poultry directly to institutions
• Local meat processors expanded their processing capabilities, enabling more local farmers to process the higher volumes of meat required by institutions
• The University of Maryland Extension Agricultural Marketing program developed a new factsheet, Farm-to-Hospital – Selling Farm-Raised Meats and Poultry in Maryland to guide local farmers in how to work with hospitals on purchasing their products
• Future Harvest-Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture featured the theme Farm to Institution: Making Local Food Economies a Reality at its recent annual conference.  It drew record-breaking numbers of over 400 people, including for the first time hospital dietitians, who earned continuing education credits for attending sessions that showed how sustainable food production methods lead to healthier foods

Hospital Efforts Recognized by State and National Organizations

Hospitals also received statewide and national recognition for their accomplishments.  Carroll Hospital Center received 1^st place in the national Food Climate Health Connection Award of the Healthy Food in Health Care program of Health Care Without Harm for reducing purchases of conventionally produced meat by 21 percent and reducing food service waste.  The hospital also increased its purchase of local sustainable meat and poultry for patients and cafeteria patrons.

Union Hospital of Cecil County received Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s first Smart, Green and Growing Buy Local Agricultural Challenge Award, the 2011 Maryland Outstanding Rural Health Achievement Award, and the 2011 Trailblazer Award by MD H2E for reaching significant procurement benchmarks including 100 percent local pasture-raised beef, 90 percent local pasture-raised poultry, 9 percent certified organic produce, and other local produce and dairy purchases, bringing their total rate of local food purchasing to 44% of their meat, poultry, produce and dairy.

“Maryland hospitals are demonstrating true leadership,” said Michelle Gottlieb, national coordinator of the Healthy Food in Health Care Program of HCWH. “They are not only protecting the health of their patients, employees, communities and the environments where they live, they are also supporting local farmers and sending a strong message to the marketplace – as a result, they are changing our food system,” said Gottlieb.

Twelve hospitals purchased local sustainable meat and poultry in 2011:

Forty hospitals purchased local foods during the 2011 Buy Local Challenge:

Additional resources including pictures and stories of hospitals’ local food programs, links to the Buy Local Challenge and Balanced Menus Challenge, presentations and reporting from the Local Sustainable Meat & Poultry conference and the Chefs and Cooks Training, factsheets and other information are available at http://mdh2e.org/sustainable-foods/.

 Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (MD H2E) is a technical assistance and networking initiative of the University of Maryland School of Nursing that promotes environmental sustainability in health care including pollution prevention, waste reduction, environmentally preferable purchasing, green building, and sustainable food practices. Participants include hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, research laboratories, and other ancillary health care provider in Maryland. www.mdh2e.org.

The Healthy Food in Health Care Program is a national initiative of Health Care Without Harm, developed in conjunction with its member organizations, which mobilizes advocates to work with hospitals across the country to help improve the sustainability of their food services. For more information about the HCWH Healthy Food in Health Care Program, visit www.healthyfoodinhealthcare.org.

 Heath Care Without Harm (HCWH), an international coalition of more than 500 organizations in 53 countries, is working to transform the health care sector, without compromising patient safety or care, so that it is ecologically sustainable and no longer a source of harm to public health and the environment. To learn more about HCWH’s work, visit our website at www.noharm.org, our YouTube channel at HCwithoutharm, and our twitter feed at hcwithoutharm.

# # #

Welcome to the MDH2E January 2012 News Roundup. We know that the New Year will bring sustainable successes to hospitals across Maryland!

In this edition, find:

• The MD H2E Trailblazer Event Dates Announced
• Interview with Colleen Cusick, Chair of the Maryland Health Care Sustainability Leadership Council
• The Greener GBMC Dining Room
• Good Samaritan’s Grown for Good Garden Project
• Updates from Union Memorial, Anne Arundel Medical Center, and Carroll Hospital Center
• Sustainable Food Updates – Farm to Institution Conference, Chefs and Cooks Training, and More
• Nurses Taking Action
• And More!

Enjoy, and please let us know what’s going green at your facility!

*Correction: On page 5 of the newsletter, Union Memorial Hospital is erroneously listed as participating in the Chefs and Cooks Training. It was Union Hospital of Cecil County, whose Chef William Morgan is pictured and participated as a chef instructor for the event.

Click here to read the article featuring MD H2E award winners Anne Arundel Medical Center, Carroll Hospital Center, Good Samaritan Hospital, Union Hospital of Cecil County, and University of Maryland Medical Center. Nurses Denise Choiniere, of UMMC, and Barbara Sattler, of University of Maryland School of Nursing, also won awards for their sustainability work in health care.

Jessica Gould of WAMU 88.5, American University Radio, spoke with Chef Cheryl Beckwith of Inova Fairfax Hospital recently, who – despite not being a doctor – has taken “Do no harm” to heart. Inova has dedicated itself to offering local and sustainable food – from produce to seafood to poultry.

Gould quotes Beckwith as saying, “It’s the right thing to do for our environment, for our patients, and for our employees. Fresh and local is healthier.”

MD H2E’s own Sustainable Food Program Manager, Louise Mitchell, was also interviewed. Mitchell says, “Hospitals are starting to realize the changes that have happened in our food system…And there are lots of practices that are linked to chronic disease and obesity. Hospitals have realized that they have a responsibility to change their food purchasing practices.”

An interesting story – give it a listen!

http://wamu.org/news/11/12/31/area_hospitals_strive_for_healthier_locally_grown_food

Excerpted from”Green Health Care,” published in the December 2011/January 2012 issue of Organic Gardening:

In 2005, Sattler founded Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (MD H2E). Today, the organization boasts a membership comprising three-quarters of the hospitals in the state. Their efforts include recycling and composting, reduced reliance on toxic chemicals, and environmentally preferable purchasing policies. “We’re seeing the hospitals begin to adopt an environmental ethic,” Sattler says, “so it’s part of the fabric of the decisions they’re making.”

That doesn’t make it easy. “An institution with 7,000 employees and 800 patients on any given day, it’s a huge operation,” says Denise Choiniere, the sustainability manager at the University of Maryland Medical Center. In 2006, as a cardiac-care nurse in intensive care, Choiniere launched a recycling program that now diverts nearly 100,000 batteries annually from incineration. Other initiatives include a 50 percent reduction in regulated medical waste, high-efficiency vacuum pumps to reduce water consumption by 5 million gallons annually, and a program to divert discarded drugs from municipal wastewater treatment facilities that often can’t remove them.

Louise Mitchell, MD H2E’s sustainable foods program manager, promotes the Healthy Foods in Health Care Pledge by connecting hospital food-service directors and chefs with local farmers to increase their purchase of local, sustainable foods. She also provides technical support for other healthy food initiatives. One outcome of this support is that 17 health-care facilities statewide now host farmers’ markets or farm stands on their campuses. This fall, she hosted a training program for kitchen staff interested in purchasing and preparing sustainably produced meat and poultry from small, local farms. “Hospitals have shifted toward having more food delivered that’s already prechopped or precooked,” says Mitchell. “They have the kitchens and the knives to prepare fresh foods, but they don’t necessarily have the labor or the ovens.”

Click here for the entire article! Also featuring Highlandtown Healthy Living Center, Maryland Pesticide Network and Beyond Pesticides.

Health Care Change Agents Recognized in Environmental Conference

For Immediate Release: November 10, 2011

Contact:  Molly Englund

410-706-6832 (office)

443-803-4854 (cell)

Englund@son.umaryland.edu

Several Maryland hospitals and individual nurses were honored for their environmental health achievements at the Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment’s (MD H2E) annual Environmental Excellence in Health Care Conference today.

The first annual Nursing Leadership in Environmental Health Award was presented to Denise Choiniere, MS, RN, sustainability manager for University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC). Choiniere, the first full-time sustainability manager in a Maryland hospital, spearheaded a number of environmental initiatives at UMMC, including a hazardous pharmaceutical waste management program, Earth Day events, and a weekly farmers’ market.

MD H2E Director Barbara Sattler, DrPH, RN, FAAN, was honored with an Environmental Health Visionary Award. Sattler is founder and director of the University of Maryland School of Nursing’s Environmental Health Education Center and an associate professor in the School’s Community/Public Health master’s specialty.

Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the Maryland Hospital Association, presented five Maryland hospitals with MD H2E Trailblazer Awards. The Trailblazer Award is given annually to hospitals that have shown leadership in advancing sustainability in their operations. The 2011 winners are:

Anne Arundel Medical Center (AAMC) – AAMC replaced operating room surgical lights with LED lights and started a program to move from disposable single use medical devices to reprocessed and remanufactured devices. They also implemented a surgical services recycling program and took additional steps to reduce the amount of operating room waste.

Carroll Hospital Center (CHC) –Using a sustainability tracking tool to quantify the results of an environmental initiative, CHC was able to track its water, energy, and natural gas usage. As a result, CHC took steps that reduced natural gas usage by 30 percent. These steps included boiler refurbishing, boiler parameter control charts, adjustment of pressure and water temperatures, and softening all domestic water within the hospital, which improved heat transfer through coils.

Good Samaritan Hospital – Good Samaritan Hospital built an employee/community vegetable and herb garden on its campus. Volunteers planted a variety of crops and donated a portion of the food to a local food bank. The goal of the garden project is to teach employees about healthy food options, creating their own gardens, and sharing the harvest with the community. Good Samaritan is one of two Baltimore hospitals with vegetable gardens.

Union Hospital of Cecil County (UHCC) – Union Hospital is committed to purchasing local sustainable meat, poultry, and produce for its cafeteria and patient meals. Local farms have increased their acreage for produce, employed winter greenhouses for growing, and increased poultry flock size to meet the hospital’s needs. Forty-nine percent of UHCC’s meat and 100 percent of its beef is now purchased locally. Food waste is either composted or sent to an area hog farmer to be used for feed.

University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) – UMMC focused on lighting conservation and upgrades in the past year. The goals of their project included turning off lights when not in use and when daylight is sufficient in atriums and hallways, replace inefficient light bulbs with more efficient bulbs, and establish a baseline to monitor changes. Occupancy sensors and photo cell sensors were installed and lights in mechanical rooms were placed on automated controls.

#  #  #

Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment is a technical assistance and networking initiative that promotes environmental sustainability in health care. Participants include hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, research laboratories, and other ancillary health care providers in Maryland (http://mdh2e.org).

Maryland Health Care Sustainability Leadership Council Elects Top Officers

For Immediate Release: November 10, 2011

Contact:  Molly Englund

410-706-6832 (office)

443-803-4854 (cell)

englund@son.umaryland.edu

Baltimore, MD –Maryland Health Care Sustainability Leadership Council (HCSLC) elected officials from Johns Hopkins Hospital and LifeBridge Health to lead a new, broad-based effort to make health care more environmentally friendly.

Colleen Cusick, director of materials management, Johns Hopkins Hospital, was elected chair and Lionel Weeks, vice president of facilities, LifeBridge Health, was elected vice chair of HCSLC, which was established this year to provide guidance and advice to hospital leaders who want to reduce waste while increasing fresh local foods-a global effort known as “sustainability.” It is the first association of its kind in the nation.

HCSLC is comprised of health care providers who want to lead the development of environmental and sustainability health efforts in Maryland through forward thinking, piloting of new ideas, modeling behaviors, and setting examples for others to follow. The pioneering work of HCSLC will include providing guidance and advice to sustainability professionals working in Maryland, charting the course for collaborative statewide sustainability efforts, and offering insights to creating a more vigorous marketplace.

Seventy-five percent of Maryland’s hospitals have “green teams,” staff committees who are dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of their workplace. A desire among many of these health care employees to work collaboratively facilitated the creation of HCSLC. Fourteen hospitals sent representatives to HCSLC’s inaugural meeting; 40 were participating by the third.

Her involvement with the green movement at Johns Hopkins Hospital (as co-founder and chair of their green team) and with Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment, an initiative housed at University of Maryland School of Nursing, has readied Colleen Cusick to lead HCSLC in developing and implementing more sustainable practices at Maryland’s hospitals. “The HCSLC is an incredible opportunity to forge a realistic path for hospitals,” says Cusick. “I am fully committed to the HCSLC and what it can achieve with the assistance of all the members.”

Lionel Weeks has been involved with the greening and sustainability efforts of LifeBridge Health for the past four years. “As part of the HCSLC leadership team, I will be well situated to help guide Maryland health care facilities,” he says. “I believe we need to start by finding the pulse of each individual facility to see what their strengths are and what areas of growth currently exist.”

The election results were announced at the fourth annual MD H2E conference, held at the University of Maryland School of Nursing on Nov. 10. The conference brings together executives, nurses, facilities and food managers, all with the collective purpose of making health care an environmentally friendly sector.

To participate in HCSLC, please contact Colleen Cusick at ccusick@jhmi.edu.

#  #  #

Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (MD H2E) is a grant-funded technical assistance and networking initiative that promotes sustainability in health care. Participants include hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, research laboratories, and other ancillary health care providers in Maryland (http://mdh2e.org).

NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 10, 2011
For more information, contact:
Ruth Berlin, Executive Director, Maryland Pesticide Network, 410-849-3909, ex. 1 (office)
410-693-7319 (mobile) mpnberlin@gmail.com
Jay Feldman, Executive Director, Beyond Pesticides, 202-543-5450, jfeldman@beyondpesticides.org
MARYLAND HOSPITAL HONORED FOR GREEN APPROACH TO PEST MANAGEMENT
Department of Environmental Services at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center eliminates the use of hazardous pesticides, protecting the health of patients, staff, and the environment
Baltimore, MD – The Integrated Pest Management in Health Care Facilities Project honored the Environmental Services Department at John Hopkins Bayview Medical Center (Baltimore, MD) for their outstanding achievement in adopting a “green pest management” approach in the facility through implementation of a defined Integrated Pest Management (IPM), an approach that eliminates the use of toxic chemicals in managing pests. The award was presented at the MDH2E annual Environmental Excellence in Healthcare Conference held Nov. 10, 2011 at the University of Maryland School of Nursing in Baltimore. Rick Candy, Director of Environmental Services at Bayview, accepted the award.
The Integrated Pest Management in Health Care Facilities Project is a partnership between the Maryland Pesticide Network and Beyond Pesticides, in collaboration with Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (MDH2E).
“Health care facilities share a commitment to the well-being of those they serve, and it makes no sense for these facilities to use products that can cause diseases and conditions it seeks to cure or prevent,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, a national community-based organization of grassroots groups and project partner. “The IPM in Health Care Facilities Project is helping to move the health care sector in Maryland into the forefront of green pest management, serving as a model for non-toxic approaches to building and land management.”
IPM in hospitals, elder care facilities, special needs schools, and other health care settings protects vulnerable populations at highest risk from the toxic effects of chemical pesticide use. As outlined in the Project’s 2008 report, Taking Toxics Out of Maryland’s Health Care Sector, the most vulnerable populations are unknowingly exposed to toxic pesticides in most Maryland health-care facilities because of their use of toxic chemical pesticides associated with a range of negative health effects, including certain cancers, nervous system damage, respiratory illnesses, birth defects, Parkinson’s, Lewy Body Disease, Alzheimers, autism and endocrine disruption.
“Our goal is not to wipe out pest populations by using environmentally unsafe methods, but simply to use Integrated Pest Management principles to reasonably manage pests at an acceptable level through deterring, prevention and monitoring,” said Rick Candy, Bayview Environmental Services Director.
“With the health care industry’s efforts on being green and leaving a better carbon footprint, IPM is the right and practical thing to do within the healthcare business”
“We commend Rick Candy and the Department of Environmental Services at Bayview Medical Center for their leadership in exemplifying the efficacy of a defined IPM system whereby the focus is on non-chemical pest-prevention. And, least toxic pesticides are only used as a last resort at Bayview,” said Ruth Berlin, Executive Director of the Maryland Pesticide Network, a coalition of 25 organizations in Maryland concerned about the impact of pesticides on the public health and the environment and project partner. “Bayview has shown that it is possible to protect patients and staff from both pests and toxic pesticides. It serves as a model for the health care industry and the public in the state of Maryland and the nation.”
The Project’s mission is to educate the health care industry about the dangers posed by pesticide exposure and to offer viable alternatives to reduce pest populations and pesticide applications by introducing defined IPM as a greening initiative that advances an atmosphere of environmental stewardship, social responsibility and fiscal security.