FIGURE 6-1 The new UPMC hospital campus has a budget of $575 million and will be built on a 10.2-acre campus, with 1.2 million square feet of floor space. New construction will make up about 60 percent of the hospital, and the rest is an old medical campus, which will be renovated and retrofitted.

SOURCE: Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (2005, unpublished).

The Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics at Carnegie Mellon University is currently engaged in surveying UPMC’s existing operations and practices. It has provided a set of recommendations for environmental sustainability and future innovations.

Purchasing practices are a critical area for both cost reduction and environmental gains. The Carnegie Mellon evaluation identified the purchasing of medical and laboratory supplies, patient comfort and care supplies, office supplies, and food services as areas of focus. In addition, it suggested that UPMC should identify and test alternative cleaning products and track public health and environmental benefits of alternative operations.

UPMC staff learned how to develop, test, and (when possible) implement strategies for the efficient conversion of heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting systems. They also gained understanding of other approaches to reduce consumption of natural resources. In their effort to reduce waste streams, the hospital focused on a multiple waste management approach through recycling