LifeBridge Health Honored as Environmental Trailblazer

LifeBridge Health was one of four hospitals to receive a Trailblazer Award from Maryland Hospitals for a Health Environment yesterday at the University of Maryland. MD H2E is a program that promotes sustainability in the state's health care sector.

LifeBridge Health received the award for its success with the LED Light Replacement Project. This project involves replacing 9,200 lamps in non-patient care areas at Sinai Hospital, Northwest Hospital, Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital, Courtland Gardens Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, and LifeBridge Health & Fitness. The replacements will result in a savings of $132,452.95 in electrical costs per year and $662,264.75 over the lifetime of the LED bulbs.

Additionally, LifeBridge Health is the only health system in the region that is composting at all of its facilities, using “final compost product” for landscaping needs at system facilities. Finally, LifeBridge Health has a system-wide regulated medical waste separation and reduction program that reduced red bag waste by more than 50 percent since 2002.

The other winners were Anne Arundel Medical Center, University of Maryland Medical Center and Franklin Square Hospital Center.

LED Replacement Project Reduces Waste

As part of the ongoing Freedom to be Green program, Sinai Hospital has replaced nearly all fluorescent lights in non-clinical areas with super energy-efficient LED lamps.

The LED Replacement project makes sense both financially and environmentally.

For example, the new LEDs have three or four times the life of regular bulbs, which reduces waste. They work seven to ten years instead of the current seven months to one year. The bulbs also use 50 percent less electricity. In addition, the more these lights are used, the fewer florescent tubes- which must be disposed of in landfills- are needed.

"Budget-wise, the savings for LifeBridge Health will be substantial as the new LED bulbs are phased in. We were able to cut $110,000 from Sinai’s energy budget for the next fiscal year." says Lewis Poe, director of Plant Operations at LifeBridge Health.

Baltimore Gas and Electric will be giving LifeBridge Health rebates that will amount to about half of what our projected costs will be. In dollars and cents, that’s a savings of more than $300,000.

But Sinai and LifeBridge Health leaders know that one man's trash is another man's treasure. On June 22, Sinai donated approximately 4,000 of the outgoing fluorescent lamps and 2,000 ballasts to The Loading Dock, a Baltimore-based non-profit organization. This was the hospital’s first donation to the local charity. Most of the remaining lamps were redistributed internally to other LifeBridge Health properties for reuse.