TL;DR
Municipalities benefit when hospitals stay open. Health systems can relieve financial pressure and improve their chances of staying afloat by making sustainable choices that improve resiliency, efficiency, and their bottom line.
Hospital Sustainability Directly Impacts Municipalities
Municipalities have a lot to gain from keeping their local health systems afloat. When a hospital goes under, the impact on local livelihoods and community health is substantial. By emphasizing sustainability, health systems make choices that naturally increase both hospital resilience and efficiency. The result is a stronger bottom line – and a better chance at keeping the hospital open. Here are five ways your town benefits when hospitals make sustainable health choices.
1) People stay employed.
Health systems are a huge economic driver. If they go under, so do a lot of your residents’ livelihoods. According to the American Hospital Association, hospitals directly employed 5.9 million people between 1995 and 2016, and that became 16.5 million when indirect employment through local businesses, such as construction, was included.
2) Communities maintain access to healthcare.
When hospitals close, your community loses access to healthcare. People have to travel farther to receive care, which makes emergency situations, including childbirth, more dangerous.
3) People do not have to defer care.
When a hospital closes, former employees lose healthcare insurance. This makes them far more likely to defer care – for themselves and their families – even when they really need it.
4) Hospitals can better withstand power outages.
The way the grid is designed means there is no way to guarantee you can restore power to hospitals first during a power outage. By choosing on-site power generation and reducing their consumption, hospitals protect their communities and keep their patients safe.
5) Communities gain food security options.
Sustainable food choices are a priority for many health systems. Clinicians write prescriptions for produce, which hospitals can supply through farm-to-hospital programs or on-site vegetable gardens. These options provide food to those in need while also offsetting the costs of supplying hospital kitchens.
Sustainable Health Choices Keep Hospitals Running
As funding for hospitals tightens, sustainability measures that improve the bottom line become even more important. There are huge risks to your town from hospital closures, so it is worthwhile to support your hospitals in making sustainable choices.
Photo by Zbynek Burival on Unsplash