Ten health care facilities have earned the American Society for Health Care Engineering’s 2023 Energy to Care® Sustainability Champion Award for demonstrating strong leadership in becoming more sustainable facilities and using saved resources to support patient care. They are profiled on these pages.
Ascension NE Wisconsin – Mercy Campus
Asset reuse, food waste digesters, steam traps and more
Encompassing 139 hospitals in 19 states, Ascension is one of the leading nonprofit health care systems in the U.S. Impressively, five of its facilities earned Sustainability Champion Awards in 2023, including Ascension NE Wisconsin – Mercy Campus in Oshkosh, Wis., a 633,521-square-foot hospital with 117 beds.
Ascension launched an environmental stewardship program across Ascension NE Wisconsin – Mercy Campus and its other hospitals over 10 years ago. In 2017, it surpassed the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge goal, three years earlier than planned, to reduce energy use by 20% by 2020 from a 2008 baseline.
What’s more, the organization implemented a long-term environmental impact and sustainability program in 2021 to increase efforts around energy conservation, waste management and environmentally preferred purchasing. In addition, Ascension established a goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions and zero waste by 2040, and meeting the Department of Health and Human Services Health Sector Climate Pledge of reducing emissions by 50% by 2030.
Today, the ENERGY STAR®-certified Ascension NE Wisconsin – Mercy Campus participates in Ascension’s Marketplace platform, which allows sites to list and claim unneeded equipment. The intent is to promote sustainability by reusing assets with additional life remaining, avoiding new asset purchases and removing surplus assets from storage.
The Oshkosh facility also has a food waste digester — a machine that uses organic microorganisms and oxygen to break down refuse — that has helped divert 32 tons of food scraps and downstream waste from landfills. Steam traps, designed to eradicate steam leaks, have been surveyed and replaced throughout the facility too, leading to greater energy efficiency.
Kyle Sunderlin, PE, energy project manager and demand side lead at Medxcel, which provides facilities management services for Ascension hospitals, says, “We are thrilled and grateful to receive the Sustainability Champion Award, which highlights our team’s efforts to promote healthier communities by having more energy-efficient systems.”
Ascension Seton Medical Center Williamson Hospital
Reducing time between commissioning and implementing solutions
Another Ascension site deserving of serious kudos is Ascension Seton Medical Center Williamson Hospital in Round Rock, Texas, which has 181 patient beds across 370,000 square feet and earned a 2023 ENERGY STAR certification.
What’s more, the Ascension Texas Ministry Market, which includes the Ascension Seton Williamson facility, won a 2023 Governor’s Texas Environmental Excellence Award in the innovative operations/management category for making environmentally beneficial changes, including its efforts to transition to clean energy sources, which will help reduce air pollution in the community and decrease the amount of municipal solid waste sent to landfills.
“We worked hard to retrocommission our air-handling units so that they operate more efficiently and as intended, which provided a great opportunity to validate hospital compliance without over-ventilating our facility. It really showed us new opportunities for proper ventilation control,” says Scott Czubkowski, PE, CHC, national director of energy and facility performance at Medxcel. “And, as with Ascension NE Wisconsin – Mercy Campus, Ascension Seton Williamson participates in Ascension’s food waste digester initiative, which prevents excess waste from reaching landfills.”
He believes other hospitals should take a cue from what he and his team have learned.
“The time between commissioning efforts and implementation of solutions should be accelerated to recognize sustainability results. This must be done thoughtfully to optimize quality for the long term,” says Czubkowski, who expressed gratitude on behalf of the facility for being recognized as a Sustainability Champion.
Ascension St. Vincent Fishers Hospital
Measures include BAS, LED and steam system efficiency
Spanning three stories, with 30 medical-surgical beds, 10 labor-delivery-recovery-postpartum beds and 10 observation beds, Ascension St. Vincent Fishers Hospital in Fishers, Ind., has been honored with a PRC National Excellence in Healthcare award, an internally bestowed Green Champion Award for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and a 2023 ENERGY STAR award, among other accolades. Now, it can add a Sustainability Champion Award to its trophy case, too.
The hospital stands out for optimizing its building automation system (BAS), including keeping it in “auto” mode to improve efficiency. BAS programs allow an operator to monitor all connected building systems from a single interface.
Ascension St. Vincent Fishers and other Ascension sites have also replaced numerous fluorescent fixtures with LEDs, which reduces power consumption by almost 40%. And its steam blanket program aims to reduce heat loss in insulated pipes and requires less natural gas to meet heating loads. The heat energy saved directly contributes to Ascension’s carbon-reduction goal.
“We’re quite proud of how we’ve implemented programs at many Ascension hospitals, including initiatives designed to optimize existing assets and improve hospital energy efficiency,” says Andrew Fairbank, energy mechanical, electrical and plumbing performance analyst for facility performance at Medxcel. “We’ve found that close collaboration between local operators and national programs is key, as are efforts to replicate successful programs.”
Fairbank says that receiving a Sustainability Champion Award is both gratifying and rewarding for the hospital.
“It validates the hard work and innovation put into energy projects and sustainability initiatives,” he says. “It also serves as recognition for the positive impact made in reducing energy consumption and implementing green practices.”
Ascension St. Vincent Warrick
Sustainability efforts include medical device program
As busy as this smaller critical care hospital can get, it hasn’t put environmentally friendly practices on the low-priority list. Several key sustainability endeavors in recent years have garnered positive attention and acclaim for Ascension St. Vincent Warrick in Boonville, Ind., which is also a recipient of 2023 ENERGY STAR certification.
Case in point: The hospital supports Ascension’s medical device reprocessing program, approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which has collected over 1.1 million devices across all Ascension hospitals — contributing to more than $19 million in savings and 481,000 pounds of waste diverted from landfills.
“We’ve learned that engagement of operators is critical to energy and sustainability success. There is an excellent collaboration between national energy programs and site engagement at this hospital,” says Andrew Fairbank, energy mechanical, electrical and plumbing performance analyst for facility performance at Medxcel.
Being named a Sustainability Champion is a testament to the team’s hard work and dedication, “and we are truly honored to be recognized for our commitment to reducing energy consumption and promoting sustainability in our community,” he says.
Every green effort by Ascension St. Vincent Warrick’s staff is celebrated at the facility. “On Earth Day this year, the hospital’s Green Team chair and other Ascension associates planted and created two azalea beds as part of a neighborhood park renovation in nearby Evansville,” Fairbank says.
Ascension St. Vincent’s Medical Center Clay County Hospital
Boosting coil efficiency and reducing food waste
Since first opening its doors 10 years ago, Ascension St. Vincent’s Medical Center Clay County Hospital in Middleburg, Fla., has made a strong impression in the region after doubling in size in 2016 and earning an IBM Watson Top 100 Hospitals Award in 2019 and 2020, a Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award in 2019, ENERGY STAR certification and now a Sustainability Champion Award.
Helping the full-service, 134-bed hospital claim these distinctions are initiatives like the regular cleaning of heating and cooling coils on air-handling units, an “unusual but usable produce” program that reduces waste by distributing healthy food items that might have been discarded due to having an unattractive appearance, and its expanding recycling program.
The campus has also replaced and upgraded coils to optimize energy consumption, airflow, ventilation, control sequences and related maintenance.
“Addressing coil pressure drops led to significant improvement in energy savings,” says Scott Czubkowski, PE, CHC, national director of energy and facility performance at Medxcel. “We are very proud of our energy and sustainability work at Ascension St. Vincent’s Clay County Hospital. Focusing on these objectives motivates us to dig deeper until we find successful solutions. The lesson here? Keep digging until you find the root cause.”
