Closing out day two at Expo 2015 was a general session
entitled The Power of Collective Change: Embracing Employee Wellness
and Sustainability.
Moderated by Seema Wadhwa, Assistant Vice President of
Sustainability and Wellness at Inova Health System, the session focused on
environmental sustainability in supply chain management. By collectively
leveraging the market forces of supply and demand, the healthcare industry can
move to a healthier supply chain while reducing costs and improving quality and
outcomes.
Taking part in the session this year was Gary Cohen,
President and Co-Founder of Health Care Without Harm. Health Care Without Harm
is an international organization that campaigns for environmentally sustainable
healthcare practices.
Mr. Cohen lauded GPOs as industry leaders, stating:
"It was GPOs that transformed and phased out the use of mercury in
healthcare products."
Joel Sigler, Senior Manager of National Environmental
Health and Safety at Kaiser Permanente, joined Mr. Cohen on the panel.
"At Kaiser...we want to articulate to suppliers why
environmental sustainability is important...so we are using products that don't
have as large of a carbon footprint as previous generations," said Mr.
Sigler of Kaiser Permanente.
The third member who participated in this session was
Christina Vernon, Assistant Vice President for A Healthy Environment at
Carolinas HealthCare System. Carolinas HealthCare System is “a nonprofit
hospital network which operates hospitals, freestanding emergency departments,
urgent care centers, and medical practices in… North and South Carolina.”
Touching on the importance of this issue as well as the
compact size of the field in which she operates, Ms. Vernon reported, "As
sustainability leaders in healthcare we are few and far between...there are
less than 100 [individuals and organizations] in this space."
The panel engaged the audience, full of GPO members, suppliers,
and manufacturers, asking open-ended questions to urge movement on the issue of
environmental sustainability in healthcare.