The new 6,100-square-foot green rooftop is the third and largest to be installed at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. The first, a 4,125-square-foot green rooftop was installed atop the Heart, Vascular and Lung Center and was LEED Gold certified in 2009. In 2011, a second, 3,000-square-foot rooftop garden was installed on top of the Cancer Center. Any property owner, commercial or otherwise, may want to consider creating a garden or recreational area on their rooftop. Having rubber roofing installed by the likes of Roofer’s Guild can provide a good supporting surface to build atop.

While the rooftop garden has both environmental and aesthetic appeal, it will also boost financial savings for the hospital. The extension of the roof life, energy conservation, enhanced public relations and conservation of the municipal septic systems will help the hospital’s financial stability. The Fremont Tower will also help the hospital save money. The new building was designed with a sustainable approach and includes efficient mechanical systems, the use of passive solar energy, and low-flow faucets, toilets and showers.

St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and Affinity Health System hope the new rooftop garden will also provide patients a good environment in which to heal. Affinity Health System has a mission and a vision for green health care and sustainability, and they urge staff to be responsible stewards of natural resources, according to a statement.

Hamill Green Abrahamson, with offices in Milwaukee, designed the rooftop garden. Minneapolis-based Craft Building Services LLC installed the garden. Bachman’s Inc., also based in Minneapolis, custom grew the green roof system as the regional LiveRoof licensee.

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“Hospitals nationwide are transforming their purchasing practices to avoid toxic chemicals, buy healthier food and beverages, and become energy efficient and less wasteful,” said Gary Cohen, founder of HHI, in a statement. “This report shows that clear trends have emerged and innovative hospitals are implementing strategies to reduce costs, improve their environmental performance and support broader environmental health goals.”

More hospitals are committing to reducing diet-related diseases such as diabetes, the report states. More than 630 hospitals responded to questions related to sustainability efforts. The study found these hospitals spend more than 15 percent of their food budget on local and sustainable food, with an average of $23.7 million spent in 2013. That’s an increase of 350 percent versus the previous year.

More hospitals report that they are also not buying as much sugar-sweetened beverages. All told, nearly $42 million was spent on healthy beverages, which made up 77 percent of total spending.

What’s more, the percentage of hospitals purchasing PVC/DEHP-free products went up by 60 percent. Hospitals are also demanding that upholstered furniture not contain toxic flame retardants or other unsafe chemicals. Almost $700,000 was spent on compound-free furnishings in 2013.

One of the most significant efforts toward sustainability was reprocessing medical devices. When these devices were reused, the hospitals saved more than $45 million, a 33 percent increase over 2012.

“This report shows that we have made significant progress, but our work is not done,” said John Messervy, AIA, chair of the Healthier Hospitals Initiative and director of capital and facility planning for Partners HealthCare, in a statement. “As we move into the third year of the initiative, we will continue encouraging hospitals to purchase more environmentally preferable supplies, serve healthier foods, use less energy and reduce waste.”

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“This is a totally radical way of building a health care environment,” said Kristin Moore, director of health care for DIRTT. “It’s been really exciting for us to see how quickly this has been embraced by the health care community.”

DIRTT began offering interior health care solutions after realizing the need for inherent flexibility in medical facilities. After surveying health care stakeholders, DIRTT found the need for flexibility was being expressed again and again. Technology, patient populations and health care models are constantly evolving and changing, Moore said, DIRTT wanted to create a solution that could change with health care easily and efficiently.

“[Health care] environments need to be flexible because facilities really don’t know what they’ll be delivering and who they’re going to be delivering it to,” Moore said.

The construction of the prefabricated modular walls also saves time and is cost efficient. While typical health care construction requires a linear process, DIRTT changes the process of conventional construction.

“Typically, when you look at a conventional construction project, we start with that shell. The very first thing we do is we start erecting steel studs for the drywall construction, and the challenge with that is now every trade has to work around those vertical impediments, so it’s not a very efficient process to say the least,” Moore said.

Linear construction is a long and drawn-out process that may run into several obstacles. The clean and unitized construction of DIRTT interiors is a major benefit to already occupied health care facilities that need construction to be unobtrusive and fast, Moore said.

“For health care facilities, they need to get their doors open to start generating revenue and start responding to their patient population,” she said. “If we can compress and compact that construction schedule that’s a big benefit for a health care facility.”

The horizontal detail of DIRTT solutions can also incorporate the specific needs of the health care setting. DIRTT walls can support anything from iPod docking stations to handrails to artwork. These details can be changed in or out depending on the needs of the facility and do not need to be screwed into the wall.

“We have a non-marring approach where that bracket detail supports it,” Moore said. “So over time, facilities do not have to come in and patch and repair where those elements used to be.”

DIRTT also concentrates on reducing material wastes. Using ICE software, DIRTT minimizes the amount of materials brought into construction and reuses materials in the interior to be as clean and sustainable as possible. The highly sustainable design technology also identifies which elements of DIRTT interiors can be reused in future renovations.

“Instead of creating waste and, at best, diverting waste, we just don’t create waste in the first place,” Moore said.

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“Our primary focus has always been to keep our communities healthy, and from this project’s beginning, we’ve carried through with that mission,” said Phil Robinson, president of LMC, in a statement. Whether it’s by conserving water and energy or by providing the highest quality medical care, our commitment to the community and to our patients is our number one priority. We’ve created a building that offers innovation and design as the cornerstone of sustainability.”

Sustainable achievements of the facility include the conservation of 1.7 million gallons of water annually; 1,000 new trees planted; 70 preferred parking spaces for fuel-efficient and low-emitting vehicles; a 16,000-square-foot vegetated roof that captures and filters storm water runoff; drought tolerant and native landscaping; and approximately 35 percent of energy used in the facility’s Heart Pavilion will be offset by renewable energy credits.

“The certification serves as an example to the health care industry, proving that hospitals and health care facilities can be environmentally friendly while providing high-quality care,” said Marc Heisterkamp, director of Strategic Accounts at USGBC, in a statement. “The leadership of the Main Line Health Board and leadership team during the process of attaining LEED certification on this project was so important to the industry and our mission. Being the largest LEED Silver-certified health care facility on the east coast is a tremendous accomplishment, and I applaud the efforts of all involved in the planning and construction. LEED certification proves that LMC is lowering their environmental impact while providing a healthy and productive environment for employees and patients.”

P. Agnes of Philadelphia constructed the building, and Stantec, headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, managed the project. RTKL Associates, with offices in Baltimore, designed the project. The Sheward Partnership of Philadelphia provided environmental sustainability consulting.

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With funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh have teamed up to improve sustainable childbirth procedures through vaginal delivery and birth by cesarean section.

The study, published online in Science of the Total Environment, is the first of its kind to examine infant birth using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a technique that assesses the environmental impacts associated with all stages of a product’s or procedure’s life.

“We are deeply interested in understanding the relationship between the delivery of medical care and our environment,” said Melissa Bilec, assistant professor in the Swanson School of Engineering and assistant director of education and outreach at the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation. “We utilized LCA to make suggestions on ways to save energy, improve the health of our environment and address patient or worker safety.”

The research team used LCA to evaluate medical devices and procedures used during infant birth. The major components evaluated were the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system in the hospital (HVAC), as well as lighting, machines, surgical instruments and disposable custom packs like patient gowns and toiletries associated with each mode of birth.

Researchers also evaluated the sterilization, decontamination and waste segregation for disposable materials.

“We found that energy consumption resulting from HVAC, the impacts of the waste involved with disposable custom packs, and the production of disposable custom packs contributed to the highest environmental impacts for both types of births,” Bilec said.

Using LCA, the team came up with a number of recommendations for Magee, including ways to increase HVAC control and environmentally preferred purchasing, as well as reduce reliance on disposable products and modified waste management.

“The collaboration with the Pitt engineers has been incredibly exciting for us at Magee because it’s allowed us to quantify environmental impacts that we wouldn’t have otherwise understood,” said Noedahn Copley-Woods, assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences in Pitt’s School of Medicine and an OB/GYN physician. “This collaboration has helped direct our sustainability efforts and has generated enthusiasm among Magee employees for our greening efforts.”

Using information from the study, the Pitt-Magee team is now studying the environmental impacts of different modes of hysterectomies to develop its understanding of the carbon footprint of other medical procedures.

Additional researchers involved in the study were Amy Landis, an associate professor of engineering at Arizona State University, and Pitt engineering graduate students Nicole Campion, Justin Deblois and Cassandra Thiel.

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