While most health care executives share a concern about the environment, many equate sustainability initiatives with costly investments. However, when approached strategically, sustainability in health care creates bottom-line efficiencies that benefit both the budget and the planet.
This is the focus of the sustainability team at Advantus. It’s true that many health care sustainability initiatives require upfront and ongoing investment to use. Advantus helps health systems save money in the long term by transitioning to more sustainable products and solutions.
To implement sustainability efforts that reduce costs, Advantus prioritizes projects that:
- Reduce waste
- Lower greenhouse gas emissions
- Reuse products
Reducing waste and emissions
Products paid for but not used generate financial and physical waste. One of the immediate steps health systems can take is to reduce product waste at the start.
It starts with effective inventory management. Beyond maintaining accurate par levels at individual locations, consider a community mindset with transparent communication and product redistribution. Advantus developed a process and digital application that allows individual facilities to post expiring items or items no longer needed. This allows sister facilities to purchase these items at a discount while the other location avoids wasting them. Advantus helped one health system achieve over $400,000 in cost avoidance in 2024 using an internal courier network to redistribute products before expiration.
Advantus also evaluates products that have different environmental impacts. For example, the anesthetic gas desflurane has a dramatically more significant impact on the environment compared to other anesthetic gasses. Advantus helped one health system achieve reductions in emissions after a consensus to remove desflurane from use.
Advantus worked with the health system’s clinical staff to identify and remove desflurane vaporizers, virtually eliminating the possibility of the gas being used within the system. After removing desflurane vaporizers, they avoided 1,671 metric tons of CO2, which is equivalent to:
- 361 passenger cars on the road
- 188,119 gallons of gasoline
- 1,842,118 pounds of coal burned
Reusing and reprocessing products
Reprocessing products and shifting to reusable products extends the life of each purchase. Clinicians may unfairly associate reprocessed tools and products with lower quality. But in practice, reprocessed items pass more rigorous testing than new products.
New products are tested in batches, meaning just a few out of each batch are pulled out for quality testing. In contrast, each reprocessed item is quality tested, so you know the exact item you’re using has met high standards.
Advantus helped one health system divert over two tons of waste by reprocessing electrophysiology (EP) equipment. In three years, they’ve also saved over $2 million while sustaining quality care for patients. To achieve these results, Advantus helped them overcome challenges related to physician buy-in, education and vendor alignment.
Selecting sustainability investments that reduce your bottom line
A strategic approach to sustainability in health care can simultaneously reduce environmental impact while bolstering a health system’s bottom line.
Advantus offers health systems a wide range of sustainable supply chain solutions, including:
- Strategic consulting on sustainability
- Utilization analysis
- SKU rationalization
- Channel optimization
- Reusable product portfolios
- Reprocessing change management
- Reprocessing contracts ready for use
- Supplier collaboration on sustainability
- Waste stream management
Contact Advantus to discover how your organization can improve environmental sustainability while also saving money.