Does ZipCar have lessons for health care? Maybe so

A recent article in Business Week spotlights the “Designers Accord,” the centerpiece of a growing grassroots movement to integrate environmental principles and sustainability into the design process. Designers are talking with their clients about using alternative environmentally-friendly materials and thinking of ways to use design to foster more environmentally-friendly behaviors. ZipCar is mentioned as an example. Its goal is to encourage not only the use of greener cars, but to change drivers’ behavior and to promote the sharing of scarce resources.

How does something like the “Designers Accord” translate to the health care sector? Can hospitals and health care systems incorporate environmentally-friendly practices that are sustainable, make good business sense, and improve the health of patients and health care workers?

The Pioneer team recently awarded a grant to Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), an international coalition that is doing just that - working to make the health care sector environmentally sustainable in ways that improve peoples’ health. They want to transform the design, construction and operations of health care facilities to minimize their impact on the environment and foster healthy, healing settings for care.

To date, HCHW has been successful in helping eliminate mercury-based medical equipment in the US and promoting safer waste management practices around the world. HCWH aims to tap the purchasing power of the health care system as a lever to create policies and move market supply and demand toward sustainable food production, waste reduction, and safer products, materials and chemicals for use in the health care setting.

The Pioneer grant to HCWH will support a collaborative of 25 hospitals and health care systems that will research and adopt environmentally sound practices that promote the health and safety of patients and workers. The collaborative will consider opportunities where policy or code changes might have widespread impact and their findings will be shared through a series of best practices and case studies. Pioneer is particularly interested in the benefits to human health. Hospitals on the forefront of this issue have taken measures to install green flooring systems that have resulted in fewer falls and accidents among patients and staff, and other hospitals are exploring new options in ventilation systems that use energy more efficiently and might prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

Just as the “Designers Accord” fosters a bottom-up approach, there is an emerging network of hospitals and health systems around the country that are already thinking about the question of sustainability. And as demand for sustainable practices and products increases, the work of these hospitals and the work of HCWH will lead the field.

Keep watching the blog for further updates about Health Care Without Harm and the work of the design collaborative.

Comments

[Susan Promislo]

Hospitals for a Healthy Environment offers a great series of teleconferences on developments in green health care practices. The next one, taking place 3/14 at 1:00 Eastern, features the work of two champions of green building in health care - Perkins+Will Architects and Kaiser Permanente. The call will examine what Kaiser Permanente is learning from facing the operational challenges in implementing green building strategies. To learn more and/or register for the call, visit http://www.h2e-online.org/teleconferences/calendar.cfm.

[Theresa Kanter]

When I heard the ZipCar reference, I was expecting a more tangible comparison, rather than an theoretical comparison, which is relevant.

I haven't yet used the service, but I love the concept of ZipCar. For a nominal annual membership fee (or has that been waived?), a group of folks who don't own a car, have access to a car when a bunch of friends come to town and you want to take them around, when you need to make a larger purchase, or want to go exploring where only a car could go.

I was recently talking to a friend about our medical system woes. Here's a snippet from our chat: "I had to wait 2 months for an appointment." "Yeah, well, I had to wait 6 months." "I saw the doctor for 8 minutes, but had to wait 30 minutes to do it." "I never saw the doctor!" For my generation, these conversations replace the "one that got away" fishing stories of yesteryear.

So, what if the medical system had a ZipCar level of service? Maybe health insurance was at one point designed to be like the ZipCar, a level of security for when you need care (or a car). But there is NOTHING zippy about the system today. My friend and I agreed that although we have good coverage, we avoid the system as much as possible because it's such a chore to get an appointment, leave work in enough time to negotiate the parking lot, wait too long to see a practioner for too short a time.

If I was conceiving ZipCar service in health care (would that be ZipCare?), it would be a group of practitioners I can reach out to for low level medical advice. Maybe by e-mailing photos or sending a 15 second video of a cough that can help triage me to the right point of entry. A care provider I can call on to help me make the decision to get to my health destination.

For other patients or consumers reading this blog, what's your image of ZipCare?