Sustainable Business
Legacy Mount Hood receives environmental leadership award
Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center has been awarded the 2007 H2E Environmental Leadership Award by the national organization Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E).
The award recognizes leadership, pioneering efforts and innovation in setting the highest standards of environmentally responsible healthcare. The hospital will be inducted into the H2E Environmental Leadership Circle, an honor that recognizes its place in the vanguard of environmental progress in health care.
Winners of the Environmental Leadership Award must meet a long list of criteria for recycling, waste reduction and pollution control. In addition to a mercury-free environment and establishment of special recycling programs for sterile blue wrap, kitchen oil and solvents, Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center is the first facility within the five-hospital Legacy Health System to roll out recycling for tenants of its medical office buildings.
According to Tom Badrick, Legacy sustainability coordinator, “Tenant recycling in hospitals is not done anywhere else in the country, to my knowledge. This initiative pushes current boundaries in terms of setting high goals for protecting the environment. Most clinics and private practice physicians simply don’t have the resources to recycle on their own. By helping them recycle, we save money, make our tenants happy and ultimately protect the planet.”
Legacy Mount Hood recycled 195 tons of material in 2006, representing a 41-percent recycling rate. This translates to more than 2 pounds of recycled material per employee per day.
“One of the facility’s goals for 2007 is to increase recycling by 25 percent,” Badrick added.
For the first time, all five Legacy Health System hospitals competed for H2E recognition, and all five received separate Environmental Leadership Awards. The other Legacy hospitals are Legacy Meridian Park Hospital, Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center (which includes Legacy Emanuel Children’s Hospital), Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital & Medical Center and Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital.
In addition, Legacy Health System received the Sustained Environmental Leadership Award, H2E’s highest honor reserved for facilities or groups that have demonstrated innovative and consistent environmental achievements over time.
Jointly founded by the American Hospital Association, the Environmental Protection Agency, Health Care Without Harm, and the American Nurses Association, H2E is an independent not-for-profit organization focused on the reduction of waste volume and toxicity, efficient energy and water use, clean air, safe work practices and safe buildings.
Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center’s history can be traced back to 1922. The hospital and its staff have grown with the surrounding community. Legacy Mount Hood features diagnostic imaging technology, including the latest available in MRI and CT scanners, R2 ImageChecker and ultrasound.
Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center is at 24800 S.E. Stark St. For more information about Legacy Health System, visit www.legacyhealth.org.