"With every sustainable suggestion, idea, or solution you have to weigh the cost," he says. "You have to speak the language of the people making financial decisions, and there are a lot of ways of presenting the financial picture with more than just simple payback. For example, if I have a 4.5 percent operating margin, for every dollar that I save I have to generate $20-$25 of revenue to cover that cost. Anything you can do without having to make increased revenue to support the increased costs is a good move."

When considering and justifying sustainability alternatives, Weldy stresses that every idea should touch on four points: function, aesthetics, cost and efficiency.


"What's the function of the sustainability idea that you have? What are the aesthetics of the idea? Aesthetics can be the culture of the company, it can be how it looks, how it feels, all the sensory aspects of the idea. Cost is the referee, because you have to have the money to support your idea, and the final point is efficiency.

"You have to look at costs holistically," he advises. "Look at the supply chain cost, the environmental impact costs, and how it engages or involves employees."

IFMA HCC works closely with a number of organizations and advocacy groups that focus on green design, building and sustainability, including the American Society of Healthcare Engineers, the U.S. Green Building Council, Health Care without Harm and Practice GreenHealth.

Creating an ecosystem of care

In 2007, IFMA HCC developed a green patient room as an exhibit for the Commercial Construction Show, designed to show attendees how many of the strategies inherent in green building could be merged with evidence-based design. The room was built on seven principles, including passive survivability (the ability to withstand disaster), direct connection with the environment, the humanization of technology, ecological sustainability, the promotion of wellbeing, the deinstitutionalization of care and EBD.

IFMA HCC engaged Anshen + Allen to build the exhibit, which quickly evolved into the Green Patient Laboratory. Tyler Krehlik shares some the laboratory's history.

"It started as almost a brainstorming session to try and solve what we recognized then as a little bit of a dilemma between sustainability and evidence-based design. If you look at it with a broad brush, there is a little bit of a conflict in synergy going between those two movements."

Water use provides a working example of that conflict.

"How do you find a balance between conserving as much water as possible, but encouraging everyone to wash their hands as much as possible?" he asks. "Using materials that have antimicrobials embedded in them versus the toxic nature of those antimicrobials? Because they're inherently designed to kill microbes, they must have small amounts of toxicity for us, so how do you balance those two things? The Green Patient Lab started as a way to get people to brainstorm on what a potential patient room would look like that could be the best of those worlds."

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