Session: Healing the Hospital Environment: Purchasing Food & Less Toxic Products for Healthier Patients and Communities

4196.0: Tuesday, November 9, 2004: 2:30 PM-4:00 PM

Oral

Healing the Hospital Environment: Purchasing Food & Less Toxic Products for Healthier Patients and Communities

Hospitals make daily decisions to buy products which may, quite unintentionally, pose added health risks to hospital workers, patients or the surrounding community. By putting in place specific purchasing programs, hospitals can better identify these problems, and in the process bring about healthier, "greener" environments, and be better citizens of their communities. This session will highlight hospitals and hospital networks, like Health Care Without Harm, working to promote these programs. Specific issues also will be discussed, including: Hospital purchase of meats raised with routine antibiotics, and their contribution to the worsening epidemic of drug resistant infections; Reducing use of products containing mercury and PVC-plaastic; and reduced use of pesticides in-hospital, through Integrated Pest Management programs.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to: 1) List three practices or products found in hospitals which have real or potential environmental health impacts. 2) List two examples of how hospitals are proactively working to make their environments healthier through purchasing. 3) Articulate the role of General Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) in determining products and/or foods purchased by hospitals. 4) Describe why hospitals may want to buy meats raised locally or without routine antibiotics.

Organizer(s):

David B. Wallinga, MD, MPA
Kevin Delaney, MPH

Discussant(s):

Jamie Harvie
Lizabeth Taghavi
David B. Wallinga, MD, MPA
Kagan Owens, BS

Moderator(s):

David B. Wallinga, MD, MPA

2:30 PM

Healing hospitals through better buying: Working with group purchasing organizations