Sustainability strives for attention, priority in pandemic-stricken world
Historically, it should be no secret that sustainability as an aim, issue and management priority has struggled to gain a solid foothold among the key tentpoles of business operations.
This year, against the backdrop of a global pandemic that has shaken the very foundation of supply chain performance, is no exception even as the clinical, financial, operational, administrative and supply chain responses to COVID-19 shuffles sustainability lower down the priority list.
Sustainability supporters and promoters, however, remain dedicated, devoted, passionate, resilient, resolute and undaunted.
Sustainability matters
Zoë Beck, Manager, Sustainability, HealthTrust, acknowledges the challenges the pandemic has wrought but assures that the commitment to sustainability remains steadfast.
“Realistically, most hospitals have not been able to focus on sustainability due to pressing issues to keep hospitals open, functioning and safe for patients and staff,” Beck told Healthcare Purchasing News. “However, what hospitals have been doing as a result of the pandemic can be lessons moving forward for what is important for future resiliency. Sustainability plays a huge role in this.
Beck points to value lessons learned.
“While the healthcare industry has dealt with huge issues in terms of supply availability, facilities have been able to be innovative in the ways they conserve, obtain and stock supplies,” she said. “These lessons can be useful for the future as hospitals look at ways to ensure they have a robust supply chain. They have learned ways in which they can use fewer products, reprocess products that have not traditionally been reprocessed, monitor use of products and possibly move purchasing to more local manufacturers.
“While sustainability has most definitely not been the focus, the lessons learned from COVID can help health systems to be more sustainable and resilient in the future,” she concluded.
The pandemic offers up a wealth of teachable moments for everyone, according to Rob Chase, Founder and President, NewGen Surgical.
“The pandemic has caused everyone, in healthcare and in society, to change what they are doing and to adjust priorities,” Chase noted. “However, the pandemic has also ignited a renewed focus on how healthcare can recover as more resilient and sustainable. You saw not only the real challenges to a supply chain that was not ready, but the actual plastic pollution of the PPE in front of us on the streets and in the water. The pandemic has forced us all to reflect on the interconnectedness of humans, the environment and our health. There is an increased awareness of the need to take action in support of sustainable initiatives to protect the foundation of all health – a healthy environment.”
Although the pandemic has disrupted many facets of life, according to Cristina Indiveri, Senior Director, Strategic Programs, Vizient, healthcare organizations are seeking environmentally preferred purchasing strategies based on consumption behaviors and patterns.
“Prior to the pandemic, it was routine for healthcare organizations to utilize disposable products, especially PPE,” she observed. “Now, healthcare organizations have found ways to safely reuse what would normally be considered single-use items like N95 respirators. In addition, hospitals are also integrating other reusable items such as gowns, bouffant caps, skull caps, fabric masks and shoe covers. Utilizing reusable products also reduces their environmental footprint by minimizing waste.”
By “going green,” Indiveri added, healthcare organizations are finding that using reusable items can lower costs in the long term “by factoring in the return on investment instead of upfront costs.”
Andrew Knox, Manager, Environmentally Preferred Products, Premier, understands the dilemmas that clinicians, administrators and supply chain professionals have been facing for the last nine months at least, particularly as COVID-19 challenged sustainability efforts.
“It has been all hands on deck for healthcare providers as they work tirelessly to care for patients and ensure they have the critical products and supplies they need to do so,” Knox noted. “In this environment, anything that is not an immediate priority has had to wait its turn.”
But the pandemic should serve as an impetus to act and not an excuse to postpone and wait.
“Sustainability is central to the mission of the healthcare industry,” Knox insisted, “and the pandemic only reinforces its importance. For example, several recent studies have suggested a link between the severity of COVID-19 infections and local levels of air pollution, and the stress on supply chains for disposable materials has certainly highlighted the dangers of relying too heavily on single-use items.”
The pandemic reinforces heightened awareness, Knox emphasizes.
“Healthcare is beginning to truly understand its environmental footprint – and with an increasing awareness of the need to set aside competitive boundaries and work together to promote and encourage participation in green initiatives,” he said. “Practice Greenhealth, a non-profit that helps embed sustainability into healthcare operations, and the Healthcare Anchor Network (HAN), which focuses on local impacts of large healthcare institutions, have been essential in fostering meaningful collaboration.”
Seeing green
Executives at Greenhealth Exchange have witnessed the butterfly effect the pandemic has wrought on healthcare facilities and on sustainability projects, in particular.
Lingering supply chain challenges remain evident, according to Rachel Franklin, Senior Director, Contracting & Supplier Relations, Greenhealth Exchange.
“The decrease in elective procedures, and subsequently revenue, has put increased pressure on Supply Chain to take cost out of the system,” Franklin noted. “As a result, Supply Chain staff [are] focused on the lowest invoice price and not necessarily with other attributes, such as those aligned to sustainability.”
Further, “Supply Chain staff are overwhelmed just trying to manage day-to-day product shortages and patient volume spikes, which cuts into the time needed for sustainability-related improvements,” she acknowledged.
“One specific example is the dependence and high-volume use of disposable products,” Pattee indicated. “Soaring prices, extreme stocking challenges and dramatic increases in waste have opened the door to consider reusable products and sourcing of domestic products and services where they would never have been evaluated previously.”
The pandemic also provides the industry and the world with a panoramic view of a potential future that can be fixed – even down to the local level, Gary Cohen, President and Founder, Health Care Without Harm, states.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is exposing all the cracks in our safety net system – all the economic, racial and social inequities,” he said. “We need to build more localized systems that don’t depend entirely on global supply chains. Healthcare needs to partner with other actors – like regional food systems, distributed energy systems and local social services – to build more resilient communities.
“More broadly, COVID-19 gives us a glimpse into a future where society is fundamentally threatened by ecological forces that know no borders and impact everyone in the world,” Cohen continued. “We have arrived at this future sooner than we thought. Our presence and our responses to this pandemic will provide us with crucial lessons for how we can address the broader climate crisis that is also fast approaching.”
“With the pandemic, much of the focus has shifted to the fundamental aspect of supply chain – assurance of supply,” Winston said. “With this, many organizations have in some cases reduced or eliminated sustainability goals in their evaluation of potential suppliers. Over the long term, however, it will be important to reinforce these standards. A sustainable supply chain is a resilient supply chain and having a dialogue with suppliers about their initiatives on sustainability indicates that the relationship has moved well beyond traditional, transactional relationships.”
Medline Industries, meanwhile, sees the pandemic less as a roadblock to progress and more as a springboard to innovation in terms of dedication to sustainability and service to customers.
“Our responsibility as a healthcare company will always be ensuring the health and safety of those that we serve,” said Hannah Anderson, Sustainability Specialist, Medline Industries. “Part of ensuring health and safety is continually addressing climate change-related issues in all that we do. Throughout the pandemic, the general atmospheric sense of urgency extends to our sustainability work. We’ve been doubling down on our commitments to combat climate change and zeroing in on programs and initiatives that have the largest positive effect on our planet for the greatest number of individuals. For many of us in the healthcare space, the pandemic has brought home the importance of climate change action.”
So Medline executives and professionals have doubled down on a new initiative.
“With packaging waste and plastic use top of mind for many of our customers and across the industry, we set out to create a program to pave the way for large-scale change,” Anderson continued. “This September, we launched our Sustainable Packaging Lab – a cross-functional team of Medline R&D, Operations, Engineers and Sustainability team members providing solutions to packaging challenges. The lab will address issues core to climate change and global warming; cutting down on use of fossil fuels, virgin material use and scaling up sustainable material substitutions for plastic and cardboard packaging.”
Placing sustainability projects in
proper order
by Rick Dana Barlow
Strategically, if there’s one basic tenet the pandemic-cratered year 2020 taught supply chain executives and professionals it was to examine and rethink their priorities, not only in what they acquire, but how they acquire it, from whom, how frequently and how far in advance.
As satisfying inventory demands remains front of mind – and selected product categories soaring in demand more than others – non-emergency issues indirectly related to the pandemic tend to take a back seat in priority lists.
Sustainability, a passionate issue for a distinct – but less than a majority – number of supply chain executives and professionals, certainly qualifies.
Whether dressed as eco-friendly or environmentally conscious purchasing or “going green,” the attitude and initiative more frequently known as sustainability generally involves four primary categories:
- Conserving/Reducing energy and resource consumption – including electricity and water
- Reducing material waste (e.g., disposal of unused new and used products, etc.)
- Reducing chemicals of concern in manufacturing process (e.g., PVC, DEHP, etc.)
- Contracting for/investing in sustainably designed and manufactured products
Healthcare Purchasing News polled 10 executive-level sustainability subject matter experts about setting priorities for sustainability projects. Namely, which of the four key areas perhaps should be addressed first as part of a blueprint for environmental awareness and action, with 4 being most important down to 1 as least important?
Rather than commit to a ranking outright, about half initially listed all four as equally important because they were so “interconnected.” Undaunted, HPN pressed further and did manage to eke out a preferential order of recommendations from the majority.
Leading the charge with a solid average score of 3 was “reducing material waste” – including the disposal of unused new and used products.
Clocking in at a close second with an average score of 2.7 was “conserving/reducing energy and resource consumption” – including electricity and water.
Coming in third with an average score of 2.2 was “reducing chemicals of concern in the manufacturing process” – including DEHP.
Rounding out the four with a solid average score of 2 was what some argued as the procedural first step – “contracting for/choosing to invest in sustainably designed and manufactured products” – that drives the rest.
“Health systems should consider environmental health factors in their purchasing decisions,” said Zoë Beck, Manager, Sustainability, HealthTrust. “When a health system considers environmental factors in its purchasing decisions, it will begin to see progress in all areas described above. This practice will help to reduce and conserve resources, reduce waste and reduce chemicals of concern.”
Andrew Knox, Manager, Environmentally Preferred Products, Premier, sees conserving and reducing energy and resource consumption as the leading priority. “However, all of these areas are vital and not necessarily mutually exclusive,” he added.
But contracting for and investing in sustainably designed and manufactured products can lead to progress on all of the priorities, notes Thresa Pattee, Director of Sustainability, Greenhealth Exchange.
The list shouldn’t be considered as an either-or in ranking of importance, according to Rob Chase, Founder and President, NewGen Surgical.
“These are all interconnected and can be accomplished with sustainably designed and environmentally considered products,” Chase said. “Our products do Nos. 1, 2 and 3. What you need is No. 4 to make these a priority. What we buy has power and enables change.”
While Cristina Indiveri, Senior Director, Strategic Programs, Vizient, acknowledges that these four areas are all important and interconnected, some, in fact, may be easier to address that others for a health system supply chain.
“The most important area to start with is the reduction of products that include chemicals of concern,” Indiveri said. “This can be addressed through a contracting process that focuses on and rewards environmentally preferred products which are safer for staff, patients and their family members. Reducing material waste and conserving/reducing energy and resource consumption could be addressed simultaneously by an organization.”
Supply chain executives and professionals should plan ahead, according to Elise Bexley, Manager, Strategic Accounts, WestCMR.
“Instead of allowing unused products to expire, donate to a medical supply relief organization that can redistribute the supplies to a mission in need,” she noted.
Nicole Misener, Marketing Strategist, WestCMR, points to a variety of factors that contribute to material waste. Her list includes “advances in technology, conversions, surgeon departures, or an unforeseen shift in caseloads, leaving facilities with viable surplus inventory,” she said. “Instead of disposing of these products, facilities can improve their sustainable procurement practices and recoup funds by liquidating their excess supplies.
“Hospitals and health systems can reduce material waste by redistributing their new, unused excess surgical supplies to other facilities in their network,” she added.
Rick Dana Barlow | Senior Editor
Rick Dana Barlow is Senior Editor for Healthcare Purchasing News, an Endeavor Business Media publication. He can be reached at [email protected].