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Practice Greenhealth has announced the launch of the Standardized Environmental Questions for Medical Products (Version 1.0). This tool provides a common set of questions used to guide the identification, selection and procurement of environmentally preferable medical products.
More importantly, it will ensure that environmentally preferable products (EPP) are indeed available, cost competitive, of comparable quality and is anticipated will generate a sector-wide market shift in the direction of sound EPP practices.
The really exciting thing about the questions is that they were selected with input from dozens of organizations representing various sectors of the health care industry. The initial endorsing GPOs, members of Practice Greenhealth, include: Amerinet, Inc., HealthTrust Purchasing Group, MedAssets, Inc., Novation LLC, and Premier, Inc. Kaiser Permanente’s Sustainability Scorecard, launched in early 2011, significantly informed the development of the questions, as did input from suppliers, manufacturers, scientists, clinicians, and available research.
Validating the Practice Greenhealth program, HSCA (formerly HIGPA) has announced its endorsement of the Standardized Environmental Questions for Medical Products. HSCA’s commitment will ensure that by selectively choosing the medical products that enter hospital facilities, we will generate demand for safer products and services for patients, workers and the environment
Hospitals that are looking for safer and more sustainable products are to be commended for their commitment to reducing their environmental footprint. And the GPOs involved are to be commended for putting aside all competition to work together to help green the supply chain. Such significant steps have been seen in no other industry.
As 17% of the Gross Domestic Product of the US, health care is a huge buyer of goods and services from furniture to medical devices. The Standardized Questions for Environmentally Preferable Products is the first step toward helping the health care industry signal the market that health care is committed to purchasing environmentally preferable products and doing less harm to the environment through our purchasing practices.