White House to Highlight Health Care Industry’s Energy and Sustainability Successes
(3BL Media) Washington, DC - July 24, 2012 - On Tuesday, July 24, 2012 the Obama Administration will bring together health care industry leaders at a White House event to celebrate successes in increasing energy efficiency and implementing sustainability initiatives that reduce costs and improve patient care in hospitals and health care facilities across the country. The event will feature senior Administration officials including Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Jon Carson, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, and Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, as well as hospital administrators, business leaders, and policy experts.
As one of the largest sectors of the American economy, the health care industry has significant opportunity to promote sustainability strategies, and hospitals and health care facilities throughout the country have devised efficient business models that foster healthier communities and save their organizations thousands of dollars on energy bills.The Healthier Hospitals Initiative (HHI), a coalition of major health systems and organizations committed to promoting health care and sustainability, has enlisted more than 500 hospitals in an initiative to reduce energy use, end wasteful practices, serve healthier foods, and promote recycling.
Last year, President Obama launched the Better Buildings Initiative to incentivize owners of commercial and industrial buildings, including hospitals and health care facilities, to invest in energy upgrades that will create jobs, make America’s buildings 20% more efficient over the next decade, and save American businesses nearly $40 billion in reduced energy costs. More than 100 corporations, industries, educational institutions, and state and municipal governments have joined the Better Building Challenge, committing to investing more than $2 billion of private capital into energy efficiency projects and upgrading energy performance in 2 billion square feet of building space. Better Buildings Challenge partners include organizations such as the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, which as one of the largest medical centers in the world has committed to reducing energy use by 20% by 2020 for over 24 million square feet of building space.
To watch the event live, visit www.whitehouse.gov/live at 9:00 a.m. on July 24th. To follow the discussion on Twitter, use #healthierhospitals.
Speakers and panelists at this event include:
Gary Cohen, President, Health Care Without Harm & Founder, Healthier Hospitals Initiative
Gary Cohen is the founder, President, and Executive Director of Health Care Without Harm (HCWH). HCWH is an international campaign for environmentally responsible health care, working to prevent disease and illness in society by assisting the health care sector in understanding the links between a healthy environment and healthy people and helping hospitals become more sustainable. HCWH has more than 500 member organizations and partners. Gary also founded Practice Greenhealth, the nation’s leading membership and networking organization for health care institutions that have made a commitment to environmentally friendly practices. Members include approximately 1,200 hospitals, systems, group purchasing organizations, community health centers, and 100 businesses engaged in the greening of health care. He developed the initiative to encourage every hospital in the nation to implement sustainable practices.
Jeffrey E. Thompson, Chief Executive Officer, Gundersen Health System
Jeffrey E. Thompson is Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Gundersen Health System, which is striving to achieve full energy independence by 2014. A practicing pediatric intensivist and neonatologist, he is a founding member of the Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality and Chairman of the Board of the La Crosse Medical Health Science Consortium. Since completing his professional training in 1984, Dr. Thompson has worked full time at Gundersen Clinic and Lutheran Hospital – La Crosse (now Gundersen Lutheran). From 1992 to 1996, he served on the former Board of Directors of Gundersen Clinic and played a key role in the negotiations and governance design that led to the merger between Gundersen Clinic and Lutheran Health System.
J. Knox Singleton, Chief Executive Officer, Inova Health System
J. Knox Singleton is Chief Executive Officer of Inova Health System, one of the largest health care delivery systems in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. region. Through Knox’s stewardship over the past 25 years, Inova Health System has pursued a not-for-profit mission of providing world-class health care to all members of the Northern Virginia community, regardless of ability to pay. During his tenure, he has led Inova through a period of significant growth and expansion. Inova now includes hospitals, nursing homes, emergency- and urgent-care centers, assisted-living communities, a home health agency, community health and wellness programs, and various community clinics.
Seema Wadhwa, Director, Healthier Hospitals Initiative
Seema Wadhwa is the Director of the Healthier Hospitals Initiative, a national campaign to promote health care sustainability, as well as Director of Sustainability for Urban Ltd. and Director of Sustainability for Inova Health System. She is responsible for the creation and adoption of sustainable management practices, and has worked to align environmental and engineering best practices with business requirements.
Blair Sadler, Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Blair Sadler is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and former President and Chief Executive Officer at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. Under his leadership, Rady Children’s was the first pediatric hospital in the United States to win the Ernest A. Codman Award for its work in developing clinical pathways. As a longstanding member of the Board of the Center for Health Design, he has been heavily involved in developing the business case for building better hospitals through evidence-based design. He has consulted with health systems throughout the world on building optimally safe and low stress hospitals, and has written articles on the evolving business case for evidence-based designs of hospitals. He received the Award of Merit from the California Hospital Association for Distinguished Lifetime Service and Achievement.
Al Iannuzzi, Senior Director of Product Stewardship, Johnson & Johnson
Al Iannuzzi is a Senior Director of Product Stewardship in the Worldwide Environment, Health & Safety department at Johnson & Johnson. He leads Johnson & Johnson's EARTHWARDS™ greener product design process as well as their “Healthy Future 2015,” a five-year strategy for achieving sustainability objectives. Prior to Johnson & Johnson, Al worked for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and at an environmental consulting firm. Al received his Ph.D. degree in Environmental Policy from the Union Institute & University in Cincinnati where he researched EHS self-regulation programs. He is the author of two books and numerous articles on product stewardship and environmental compliance.
Kathy Gerwig, Vice President of Workplace Safety and Environmental Stewardship Officer, Kaiser Permanente
Kathy Gerwig is Vice President of Workplace Safety and Environmental Stewardship Officer for Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Kathy is responsible for developing, organizing and managing a nationwide environmental initiative for the organization. Under her leadership, Kaiser Permanente has become widely recognized as an environmental leader in the health care sector. Kathy is also Kaiser Permanente’s national leader for Employee Safety, Health and Wellness. In that role, she is responsible for eliminating workplace injuries, promoting healthy lifestyle choices, and reducing health risks for the organization’s 167,000 employees and 15,000 physicians.
John Messervy, AIA, Director of Capital and Facilities Planning, Partners HealthCare & Chair, Healthier Hospitals Initiative
John Messervy is an architect and the Director of Capital and Facilities Planning for Partners HealthCare. John is responsible for Partner’s multi-year facility planning program and their large-scale construction projects. During the past decade Partners has invested more than $2 billion in new facility construction and renovation in support of the highest level of clinical care and medical research. John founded the Partners Sustainability Initiative in 2008 and is Chair of the Healthier Hospitals Initiative, a coalition of the nation’s leading hospitals committed to reducing the environmental footprint of the health care sector. He has spoken at numerous national conferences and has taught at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tufts University.
Christina Vernon, AIA, Executive Sustainability Officer, Cleveland Clinic
Christina Vernon is the Executive Sustainability Officer of the Cleveland Clinic. She is a registered architect with more than 10 years of experience, most of which focused exclusively on health care planning and construction. She oversees the sustainability program across the Cleveland Clinic Health System, which has nearly 40,000 employees and over 23 million square feet in building space with sites in Northeast Ohio, Florida, Las Vegas, Canada, and Abu Dhabi. Under her leadership, the Cleveland Clinic became the first health care provider in the United States to sign on to the United Nations Global Compact.
Brad Perkins, Executive Vice President for Strategy and Innovation & Chief Transformation Officer, Vanguard Health Systems
Brad Perkins joined Vanguard Health Systems in July 2009 as the Executive Vice President for Strategy and Innovation and Chief Transformation Officer. He oversees the company's business strategy and innovation efforts, which include promoting links between the environment and our health. Under his leadership, Vanguard has committed to numerous sustainability objectives, including establishing healthy, sustainable food and beverage programs in all facilities by 2013. Prior to Vanguard, Brad worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where he served as Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer and hired CDC’s first Chief Sustainability Officer.
