UF HEALTH SHANDS EARNS ENVIRONMENTAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Hospital system has been recognized for green initiatives three years running
UF Health Shands was recently honored with the Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Award. The award recognizes the hospital system’s continued commitment to sustainability, its demonstrated efforts to improve environmental performance, and initiatives to build sustainability into the operations of the institution.
“I’m really proud that UF Health — while battling the COVID-19 pandemic and keeping our doors open — maintained its commitment to sustainability through a variety of impactful initiatives,” said Lauren Berkow, M.D., FASA, a professor of anesthesiology in the UF College of Medicine and chief of the Division of Neuroanesthesia.
The hospital’s efforts toward more environmentally friendly practices cuts across an array of areas, and a number of data points illustrates its ever-increasing eye toward sustainability.
For example, over the past year, 93% of the hospital’s irrigation was provided by municipal reclaimed water, and it reduced its potable water by nearly 1.4 million gallons per year. It also recycled 1,224 tons of waste, reduced paper use by 21.4% from the previous year, and diverted 30 tons of plastic from landfills thanks to its sharps container program.
UF Health Shands also diverted 121 tons of food from landfills through composting initiatives. And through its Greening the OR efforts, the hospital avoided about 20 tons of fluid waste and reprocessed 75% of eligible items for a total of 19,353 pounds of reprocessed devices. The institution has also removed nearly 448 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents year-over-year and incorporated an 189,000-kilowatt-hour photovoltaic system, or solar panel system, into its facilities.
Berkow said UF Health Shands employees also launched an initiative to repurpose blue wrap from sterile instruments to make masks when COVID-safe face coverings were in short supply.
“The Environmental Excellence Award recognizes health care facilities that continuously improve and expand upon programs to eliminate mercury, reduce and recycle waste, source products sustainably and more,” according to Practice Greenhealth. “Winning facilities must demonstrate that they are recycling at least 15% of their total waste, have reduced regulated medical waste, are on track to eliminate mercury, and have developed successful sustainability programs in many areas.”
Berkow co-chairs the UF Health Sustainability Committee with Tedd Comerford, associate vice president of Supply Chain Services and Materials Management for UF Health Shands. The committee was established by Berkow in 2016 to help guide UF Health’s sustainable practices.
“We’ve come light years with Dr. Berkow’s guidance through this process and in being able to engage folks within Food and Nutrition Services and Environmental Services to keep this more on the forefront of how we practice,” Comerford said. “It even carries over to the Supply Chain team — on how we purchase things to make more sustainable purchasing decisions.”
This is the third year in a row UF Health Shands has been recognized by Practice Greenhealth for its efforts toward more sustainable practices within the institution.
The UF Health Shands Sustainability Committee members hail from a wide variety of departments inside and outside of UF and UF Health, Berkow said. The committee is always looking for new members, and UF Health faculty and staff can visit Bridge.UFHealth.org/shands-supply-chain/sustainability-committee to learn more.
