Earth Day: Banner Health Receives Healthy Hospital Award
PHOENIX (April 22, 2011) – Banner Health today – Earth Day – is proud to announce it has received a Healthy Hospital Award from Ascent, a division of Stryker Corp.
The ‘healthy hospital’ designation is reserved for hospitals that demonstrate outstanding efforts to reduce the environmental footprint of health care delivery and improve overall hospital quality through medical device remanufacturing and reprocessing.
In 2010, Banner Health’s reprocessing program reduced its supply costs by $2,631,747 – (an increase of 29 percent over 2009). These savings have been redirected to key patient care initiatives.
At the same time, using remanufactured and reprocessed medical devices has reduced Banner's medical waste by more than 90,000 pounds.
“We are pleased to recognize Banner Health for optimizing hospital resources to improve overall quality of patient care,” said Rick Ferreira, president of Ascent, a Stryker Sustainability Solution. “In today’s health care environment, we need more leaders like Banner Health that are implementing innovative supply chain strategies to reduce costs and optimize resources in order to support quality care.”
Hospitals and hospital networks across the nation are pursuing initiatives to reduce the environmental footprint of health care delivery.
Among these initiatives, reprocessing and remanufacturing single-use devices stands out as an environmental practice that not only radically reduces the amount of medical waste, but at the same time frees significant resources for the hospital – all without capital investment.
Banner Health is in the distinguished company of other leading health systems using reprocessing programs. In fact, reprocessing programs are currently employed by all of the U.S. News & World Report “Honor Roll” hospitals – or the top 14 institutions nationwide.
About Banner Health
Headquartered in Phoenix, Banner Health is one of the country's largest nonprofit health care systems. Located in seven states, Banner Health owns or manages 23 health care facilities as well as physician practices and nationally recognized research centers.
