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Making every day Earth Day at HCA Healthcare
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Happy Earth Day!
Every April 22, upholding and reviving our planet’s health is celebrated as part of Earth Day. As kids, we took action once-a-year by planting a tree or recycling on Earth Day. Flash forward to modern day and Earth Day has transformed into something much more for HCA Healthcare’s 270,000 colleagues.
Earth Day is year-round in the communities where we operate.
Every single day, we make a difference in our planet through innovative environmental and sustainability efforts. And, as of 2019, HCA Healthcare affiliate hospitals have received more than 80 national Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards.
Practice Greenhealth (PGH) recognizes a facility’s ongoing commitment to improving environmental performance while demonstrating sustainability efforts in the community. This year, six HCA Healthcare hospitals were privileged to receive Environmental Excellence honoree designations from PGH.
Making Medicine Mercury Free
- Medical Center of Trinity
- Redmond Regional Medical Center
Greening the Operating Room
- Lee’s Summit Medical Center
Partner for Change
- Lee’s Summit Medical Center
- Parkland Medical Center
Partner Recognition
- Alaska Regional Hospital
- Centerpoint Medical Center
Creating sustainable healthcare
Patients at HCA Healthcare facilities can rest a little easier, knowing that we are doing our part to help keep our earth clean and sustainable. In 2018, HCA Healthcare hospitals and sites of care together:
- contributed more than 122 million pounds of materials to recycling
- conserved more than 3,300 gallons of water for each patient room with water-saving measures
- achieved significant energy use reductions
We are also raising the bar and making a difference for our patients, colleagues and communities by:
- incorporating wood from sustainable forest management providers in construction and renovation projects
- using increased recycled content in building materials
- choosing environmentally preferable purchasing options
Recycling.
Healthier – and greener – tomorrows
This summer, HCA Healthcare will host its 10th consecutive Environmental Fund Climate Corps Fellow. These masters’ degree candidates work on projects to help us reduce resource usage, such as lighting options and an energy improvement standard.
Facilities are also taking action. Here are some ways that HCA Healthcare is keeping Earth Day celebrations going all year long:
- local park clean-ups
- carpooling
- electric vehicle parking
- recycling
- clothing drives
- participating in local composting
- compassion tree plantings, honoring hospital staff for their commitment to patients
- letting employees know about how their efforts contribute to facility sustainability successes
A compassion tree planting.
Our HCA Healthcare family is committed to conservation and our environment – thank you for relentlessly reducing, recycling and reusing not just on Earth Day, but every day!
As a Practice Greenhealth member, HCA Healthcare continues to seek to reduce healthcare’s environmental footprint through resource conservation and other measurable environmental improvements. HCA Healthcare is also a founding sponsor of the Greening the Operating Room Initiative; a founder of the Healthier Hospitals Initiative; and member of HealthTrust’s Environmental Sustainability Network.
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About HCA Healthcare
HCA Healthcare, one of the nation's leading providers of healthcare services, is comprised of 183 hospitals and more than 2,300 sites of care, in 20 states and the United Kingdom. Our more than 283,000 colleagues are connected by a single purpose — to give patients healthier tomorrows.
As an enterprise, we recognize the significant responsibility we have as a leading healthcare provider within each of the communities we serve, as well as the opportunity we have to improve the lives of the patients for whom we are entrusted to care. Through the compassion, knowledge and skill of our caregivers, and our ability to leverage our scale and innovative capabilities, HCA Healthcare is in a unique position to play a leading role in the transformation of care.
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