Targets include:

• Reduce water by 25 percent per square foot.

Already, at the Woodland Hills Medical Center in in Woodland Hills, Calif., Kaiser installed smart irrigation controllers in 2014 to reduce the amount of water used. These controllers accounted for weather patterns before watering the grounds. Alongside the smart irrigation, Kaiser eliminated turf and chose native and drought-resistant plants and has reduced water usage at Woodland Hills by 50 percent and at its Panorama City Medical Center by 60 percent.

• Recycle, reuse and compost 100 percent of non-hazardous waste.

As of the end of 2015, Kaiser diverted nearly 40 percent of its waste from landfills. Previously, the establishment of an electronic medical record system had decreased the use of paper forms and waste. Many of the Kaiser hospitals in California have already implemented blue wrap recycling programs. Blue wrap material is used to preserve the sterility of medical instruments. While it feels like soft paper, blue wrap is actually made from heavy-duty polypropylene plastic, incredibly bad at breaking down in a landfill.

• Become “carbon net positive” by buying enough clean energy and carbon offsets to remove more greenhouse gases from the atmosphere than it emits.

In order to take more carbon dioxide out than it puts in and neutralize the emissions they cannot eliminate, Kaiser plans to buy carbon offsets, credits that fund projects that remove carbon from the air. Potential offsets will go through careful analysis to find to find projects that produce the most value in terms of mitigating against climate change and also being cost effective. Offset projects usually focus on protecting and restoring forests.

• Buy all of its food locally or from farms and producers that use sustainable practices, including using antibiotics responsibly.

Currently, 24 percent of Kaiser’s food-spend account goes toward sustainable or local food, about $7.4 million. In 2015, Kaiser spent $1.8 million on meat and poultry raised without antibiotics alone. Kaiser created the Sustainable Food Scorecard in 2012, allowing the organization to rate suppliers and vendors in order to select vendors who can best support sustainable food purchasing.

• Increase its purchase of products and materials that meet environmental standards to 50 percent.

Kaiser is looking to find safer chemical alternatives for 50 percent of the products purchased, medical and non-medical. They expect to spend some $56 billion-plus on these safer products by 2025, excluding pharmaceuticals because of the unique aspects of development and substitution. This will evolve their current standards and environmentally preferable products (EPP) policy already in place. Already, Kaiser won the 2015 EPEAT purchaser award for buying environmentally preferable electronics. Kaiser has also made strides in replacing products with non-toxic paint and fabrics, mercury-free devices, IV solution bags free of PVC and DEHP, and eco-friendly, health conscious purchases.

• Meet international standards for environmental management at all its hospitals.

The company is looking to meet the ISO 14001 environmental management system at its 38 hospitals. ISO 14001 includes policies, planning, controls and more guidelines in order to help organizations manage their environmental responsibilities.

• Pursue new collaborations to reduce environmental risks to the foodsheds, watersheds and air basins supplying its communities.

Current collaborators include Center for Environmental Health, Corporate Eco-Forum, Goodwill Industries, Health Care Without Harm, Healthier Hospitals Initiative, Practice Greenhealth, Smartway Transport and The Climate Registry.

In 2012, Kaiser’s initial goal was to cut its greenhouse missions by 30 percent by 2020. That goal will be achieved in 2017 — three years ahead of schedule.

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The new, 12-story, 349-bed Oakland Medical Center is directly across the street from the medical center it replaces. The hospital sits on the corner of Broadway and MacArthur Boulevard.

“This new building culminates a year-long capital program to keep our hospitals and medical offices state of the art,” said Gregory A. Adams, group president and regional president of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan Inc. in Northern California, in a statement. “The new medical center continues the long history we have had with the city of Oakland and renews our commitment to enhance and improve the health and well-being of our members, and of the community at large.”

The hospital features all private rooms with room service, Wi-Fi and pullout guest beds. It also contains a 24-hour ER with 52 private treatment bays, eight labor and delivery rooms and 14 inpatient operating rooms.

A special aspect of the new hospital is the full-service children’s hospital that operates within the general hospital. The hospital provides pediatric sub-specialty services and has a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and gathering areas specially designed for children.

Oakland Medical Center is the first in Northern California to have an intra-operative magnetic resonance imaging system, an advanced imaging technology that pediatric neurosurgeons use during brain surgery.

Patient rooms in the hospital will include the Get Well Network, an interactive electronic patient care board connected to a 42-inch plasma screen where patients can view television and patient-education videos, find the names of doctors and nurses, and read a care schedule.

The new facility joins a specialty medical office building next door, which opened Jan. 6 and offers 102 provider offices, six outpatient operating rooms, seven outpatient procedure rooms, a new parking garage, a lab and pharmacy. The medical campus is complete with five other medical office buildings nearby.

“Kaiser Permanente is the quality and service leader in Northern California today, and this state-of-the-art hospital will allow us to expand the excellence of our medical care,” said Robert Pearl, MD, executive director and CEO of The Permanente Medical Group, in a statement. “Offering cutting-edge adult and pediatric services, this facility will set the standard for technologically advanced hospital care in the East Bay.”

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