Green Guide for Health Care - Celebrating a Decade of Success

2011 represents a significant milestone in the Green Guide for Health Care’s decade of groundbreaking accomplishments:

• A community of more than 35,000 website registrants, more than 25 percent from outside the U.S.
• 293 registered projects, representing more than 41 million square feet of health care facility new construction and renovation influenced by the Green Guide.
• A major catalyst for the development and launch of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Healthcare, advancing the original Green Guide’s human health-focused design and construction content into a third party certified rating system and Pilot Credit Library – achieving a Green Guide core objective since its inception in 2002
• Green Guide v2.2 Operations Pilot launched in collaboration with Practice Greenhealth
• New website with enhanced functionality and expanded content

We now have an impressive roster of accomplishments, including the creation of health-based design tools customized for the healthcare sector, broadly used in the national and international marketplaces.  Additionally, a host of associated tools and resources are now prominently positioned at other organizations, including Practice Greenhealth and the U.S. Green Building Council.

These accomplishments are testament to the vision, expertise and dedication that the Green Guide catalyzed and carried out through its volunteer Steering Committee, Co-Coordinators, the Operations Pilot team, staff, and the support of Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems and Health Care Without Harm.  This unique, powerful collaboration transformed the definition of a ‘high performance healing environment,’ and ushered in a groundbreaking focus on environmental health and stewardship in the context of green building.

At the end of this year, the Green Guide will conclude its decade of leadership.  We are finalizing the Operations Pilot and preparing a final report; we will complete our design and construction webinar series; on June 30, we will bid farewell to our Senior Director Kumkum Dilwali; going forward, we will retain our website www.gghc.org as an archival holder of the Green Guide’s publications and resources.  As ever, these resources will remain available free of charge to all of our registrants. 

We look to you—our partners from around the world—to carry forward and advance these bold initiatives and further evolve the essential elements of regenerative, restorative and resilient healthcare design, construction and operations into practice.  Most of all, we remain dedicated to the transformative idea that healthcare is a beacon to realize healthy environments for all and can make a positive difference in the world. 

Exemplary Green Guide work - The Food Group

Healthy Food in Health Care Program and the Green Guide

The Healthy Food in Health Care Program (HFHC), a national initiative of Health Care Without Harm developed in conjunction with member organizations, works with hospitals across the country to enhance the sustainable aspects of their food services operations.   Founded in 2005, the program provides education, tools, resources, and support to health care facilities making the connection between the health of their patients, staff and community and the food they serve.  In 2007 the HFHC team collaborated with the Green Guide for Health Care to develop a set of guidance (Credits) to support planning, implementation, and tracking of sustainable operations in hospital food service departments.   Since the development of the Food Service Credits, HFHC has promoted the use of this valuable operating framework throughout their network of facilities, built tools and resources.  They also developed benchmark surveys and award programs that integrate and reference the Credits.  This initiative exemplifies the Green Guide’s potential to inspire and support sustainable building and operations throughout all facets of health care. 

Green Guide for Health Care Food Service Credits Toolkit. This new planning and benchmarking suite offers templates, tools and tracking sheets to support hospital food service departments in utilizing the Green Guide for Health Care (GGHC) Food Service Credits to plan, implement and track progress towards achieving sustainable operations in their facilities. Utilization of the Toolkit will also enable hospitals to compile and share actual data on their sustainability-related food service achievements to the general public, media and other interested parties. The Toolkit and related resources can be accessed at: www.noharm.org/us_canada/issues/food/planning.php.

2011 Healthy Food in Health Care Annual Survey & Awards Program will recognize excellence in sustainable food services at health care institutions across the country.   The goals of the award program are to recognize significant achievement as well as leadership; spur competition to achieve measurable, lasting results; encourage continuous improvement, with an emphasis on quantitative versus qualitative results; and benchmark progress in sustainable operations in health care food service. Awards will be made in the following categories:  Sustainable Food Procurement, Public Policy, Food Climate Health Connection, Clinical Engagement.   For survey details, visit www.noharm.org/us_canada/issues/food/planning.php#awards.   

Your completed HFHC Annual Survey is due by midnight, June 30, 2011. 

FoodMed 2011, will be held  October 18-19 in Seattle, Washington.  This conference brings together  health care leadership and management, chefs, dietitians, group purchasing organization (GPO) executives, food distributors, and health care professionals from diverse disciplines of the health care sector committed to "first, do no harm"—treating food and its production as preventive medicine that protects the health of patients, staff, communities, the environment and the bottom line.  At the conference participants will have the opportunity to participate in sessions on the Green Guide Food Service Credits and the Toolkit and learn more about how they can use these resources to frame and support their work.   Additionally the Healthy Food in Health Care 2011 Awards will be presented at the conference.   To learn more visit www.foodmed.org. 

The Healthy Food in Health Care Initiative is led by a team of representatives from the following HCWH member groups:  Ecology Center, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Institute for a Sustainable Future, Healthlink, Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment, San Francisco Bay Area Physicians for Social Responsibility, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Vermont Fresh, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Women’s Health and Environmental Network. 

Thanks to Joshi Medical Services PC - Another Green Guide Champion!

We acknowledge the generous support of Ashok K Joshi MD, President, Joshi Medical Services PC d/b/a Billerica Medical & Health Center (BMHC), an internal medical practice in Billerica, Massachusetts, through their provision of office space and staff support for the Green Guide Senior Director Kumkum Dilwali since January 2009.  BMHC (www.billericamedicalhealth.com) also participated in the Green Guide Operations Pilot progam. We welcome Joshi Medical Services PC to the Green Guide community and invite other medical practices to consider supporting the Green Guide by becoming Champion-level Sponsors!

Please direct all Green Guide inquiries to info@gghc.org.

Green Guide for Health Care is a joint project of Health Care Without Harm (www.hcwh.org)
and the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems (www.cmpbs.org).

© 2012 Green Guide for Health Care