Operational Excellence

December 5, 2007

Kaiser Permanente Featured in Facilities.net Article on Hospital Construction

Kaiser Permanente was featured this month in a leading construction trade magazine's cover story about evidence-based design and sustainable strategies in health care.

Building Operating Management's article, "Healthy and Green," looks at the growing trend in the health care industry to build patient- and staff-focused, environmentally responsible facilities at a cost comparable to traditional construction. Kaiser Permanente was mentioned prominently in the article as a leader in this trend.

Christine Malcolm, Kaiser Permanente's senior vice president for hospital strategies and national facilities, was quoted in the article. "The most interesting part about our environmental strategy is that we realized early on that, if we just do environmental building, but don't focus on patient health and safety, it's a non-starter," Malcolm said in the article. "Focusing on patient health and safety strengthens the business case for environmental strategies."

Some of the trends highlighted in the story are:

Incorporating as much natural light as possible into new facilities. Natural light not only has been shown to improve moods and reduce stress in both patients and caregivers, but also reduces lighting and heating/air conditioning costs.
Designing and locating patient rooms with views of nature, which has been shown in at least one study to improve patient outcomes and reduce care costs.
Improving ventilation and air filtering rates, and providing single-patient rooms, as strategies to reduce hospital-acquired infection rates.
Buying "green" goods and construction materials. Kaiser Permanente, for example, has partnered with the organization Health Without Harm to help train staff to buy materials that do not contain harmful materials such as lead, mercury, or dioxins. New Kaiser Permanente facilities are built with PVC-free flooring, for one example.

Kaiser Permanente, the article notes, is in the middle of a 10-year, $24 billion master plan for building new facilities and upgrading existing facilities. This year Kaiser Permanente has opened new medical centers in Santa Clara and Antioch in Northern California, and South Bay/Vermont Pavilion Medical Center in Southern California, and will open a new West Los Angeles Medical Center by year-end. It also has opened an expansion of its Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center near Portland, Ore., and three new facilities in Georgia, among its projects this year.

Sustainable building practices have resulted in buildings that reduce Kaiser Permanente's carbon footprint. Kaiser Permanente continues to be guided by the principle of environmental stewardship, even gaining recognition from the EPA in 2007.

For more about evidence-based design and sustainable strategies in hospital construction, read the cover story "Healthy and Green" at Facilites.net.