Premier Healthcare Alliance Endorses Standardized Environmentally Preferable Products and Services Tool

The Premier healthcare alliance has endorsed Practice Greenhealth’s (PGH) Greening the Supply Chain Initiative and its industry standard tool for medical product procurement.

The Greening the Supply Chain Initiative brings together leaders in all sectors of healthcare to initiate dialogue on ways to create products with reduced environmental and human health impacts. It provides a common set of tools and resources for purchasers, suppliers and manufacturers to help drive a sector-wide market shift towards the availability of environmentally preferable products (EPP) and services that are cost-competitive and of comparable quality to other products and services.

A significant part of this initiative is the development of a tool, the Standardized Environmental Questions for Medical Products (Version 1.0), which can be used to guide the identification, selection, and purchase of EPP. Developed with help from Premier and four other purchasing organizations, the questionnaire was unveiled during the HIGPA International Expo on October 13 in Washington, D.C.

"We are committed to environmentally responsible healthcare practices to help hospitals find safer, more efficient products and reduce industry waste," said Premier Chief Operating Officer Mike Alkire. "By doing so, we can help lower spending and create a safer and healthier environment for patients, healthcare workers, and local and global communities.”

The Environmental Questions for Medical Products are a consistent set of supplier questions on key environmentally preferable attributes to be used in the procurement process for medical products that help diagnose, treat or care for patients. The questions will focus on natural resources, chemicals and waste in packaging, manufacturing, use, and the end-of-life of medical products.

The tool can be used by all types of stakeholders, including group and healthcare purchasers in their supply chain contracting and procurement processes, as well as manufacturers and suppliers in their entire product life cycle process. Although there are many environmental elements of concern in medical products, the intent of this tool is to identify and focus the collective efforts of stakeholders on an initial set of environmentally preferable attributes with stated rationale.

Premier and its GreenHealthy^® environmental leadership program were recognized last April by PGH for the ninth year in a row with the Champion for Change award for collaboration with alliance members to promote sustainable purchasing and healthcare practices. Premier provides publicly available tools and resources for greener healthcare through its Premier Safety Institute^® website. For instance, GreenCorner^®, one of Premier’s Web resources, showcases more than 100 hospital and supplier success stories on green initiatives that contribute to a safer, healthier community.

About Practice Greenhealth

Practice Greenhealth is the nation’s leading membership and networking organization for institutions in healthcare that have made a commitment to sustainable, eco-friendly practices. To learn more about Practice Greenhealth’s Greening the Supply Chain™ Initiative visit: www.practicegreenhealth.org/gsc.

About the Premier healthcare alliance, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient

Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals and 77,000-plus other healthcare sites using the power of collaboration to lead the transformation to high quality, cost-effective care. Owned by hospitals, health systems and other providers, Premier maintains the nation`s most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier has worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom`s National Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in Washington. http://www.premierinc.com. Stay connected with Premier on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.