Reducing, conserving, decreasing, recycling, and reprocessing the resources we employ to serve our patients isn’t just the “green thing” to do. It’s sometimes the best value analysis decision for your healthcare organization in the short and long term.
Why Would You Want to Use More of Anything to Get the Job Done?
As funny as this sounds, I remember an accountant I worked with many years ago, who rewound his adding machine paper tape to get double its life. At the time, I thought he was crazy to do so, yet I now see he had the right attitude about conservation. This accountant’s attitude was to look for ways to reduce his healthcare organization’s environmental impact because he realized to do so was good business.
This too should be your supply chain attitude, since “going green” is good business that shouldn’t cost your healthcare organization any more money if you put your “green ideas” under your value analysis microscope. To get started down the conservation road, I would suggest that you “green-light” at least three new sustainability projects each year to get the ball rolling. Here are three to get you started.
Three Supply Chain Value Analysis Ideas for Reducing Your Healthcare Organization’s Environmental Impact
Conservation isn’t just about pursuing traditional targets like fuel use, carbon emissions, recycling, or reduction in packaging waste. It can also be found in these three value analysis sustainability ideas:
- End-of-Life IT Surplus: There can be a high ROI for your healthcare organization if you refurbish, remarket, or recycle your IT equipment, while at the same time complying with all local, state, and federal laws.
- Liquidation vs. Landfills: It can be much better for the environment and a profitable practice to hold auctions for your excess or obsolete equipment instead of ditching equipment in landfills.
- Print-On-Demand Forms: Why print and stock thousands of forms when you can have them digitized and printed at their point of use, hence saving thousands of dollars in form costs annually.
These and other value analysis sustainability ideas will guarantee that you will reduce your healthcare organization’s environmental impact at a cost that is lower than how you are handling these sustainability issues today.
Going “Green” and Being Profitable Are Not Mutually Exclusive
It’s time “going green” loses its stigma in supply chain circles as being too costly to be considered. This is a fallacy that must be expunged from our dialogs now that new “green” initiatives are being implemented all around us at savings of 20%, 40%, or even 85%.
It has now been proven that “going green” and being profitable are not mutually exclusive, if you look at “green-lighting” as becoming more efficient, sustainable, customer-friendly, as well as protecting limited resources and reducing waste. Who can argue with those benefits?