Health Care Facilities to Get Green Evaluations
In the middle of 2009, the U.S. Green Building Council is rolling out a new rating system specific for evaluating health care. Named the LEED HC, the system will take into account the limitations in health care buildings and the relationship between staff members and patients in a way that the normal LEED system is incapable of doing. Certification requirements, as a result, will be less stringent than normal LEED requirements.
The EPA reports that health care facilities produce about 10 percent of all mercury emissions in the United States because of medical waste and equipment that generally contain a lot of mercury. The system would help alleviate those emissions by encouraging the profession to use newer equipment with less toxins.
An LEED system for hospitals would also get rid of copper roofs, the runoff of which can easily contaminate facilities’ water, and remove hazardous materials like asbestos from insulation. The system would also improve indoor air quality and allow more natural light into hospital rooms. LEED HC would also lower the standard for renewable energy – something that may seem contrary to the norm but that officials hope will make it easier for hospitals to use renewable means for their energy.
One thing that is unique to hospitals that the LEED HC will address is the difference between staff and patients. For example, it will stress that workers should try to bike to work without putting that mandate on patients. It will also put more emphasis on outdoor areas where patients can relax and recover.
Will the evaluating system work? One thing that impedes it is that there is no requirement that hospitals do these things. There is also no way to track if these changes work any better than the regular old LEED requirements that more than 60 health care facilities have already been certified in. Changes happen too long-term to see whether or not they are working, according to Camille Schenkel, a health care writer.
And then there is the question of whether certification is worth it in the first place, for any building. The certification process can be quite costly itself and impede even governments struggling with budgets to get their own buildings certified, as is the case in Michigan. With hospitals already operating on tight budgets, it may be difficult to get to official recognition for improvements.
Photo Credit: Health & Hospitals Corp – OFD Capital Projects at Flickr under a Creative Commons License
