That said, effective environmental management for us is not just an ecological imperative: to offset rising costs resulting, for instance, from developments in healthcare policy or collective wages, or also in the area of energy supply, efficient management of energy and the environment is also an economic responsibility which we assume as a matter of course in our corporate goal of achieving affordable and high-quality medical care for everyone.
Environmental management is a matter seen to by our CEO himself: Group-wide environmental management at RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG is co-ordinated by the Technical Controlling / Environment department which reports directly to the chairman of the Board of Management. It assists the technical control departments at each of our subsidiaries in implementing environmental management at the operative level. Through training courses of the decentralised departments as well as regular assignments of staff from the Technical Controlling department locally, an effective transfer of know-how is ensured. With the aid of intranet-based knowledge management we succeed in continuously improving the environmental standards at our hospitals and in maintaining a systematic exchange of knowledge in our growing Company. This means that newly acquired hospitals can be raised more quickly to the Group’s high ecological standards or – conversely – that new technology can be adopted from those new hospitals.
Integration management of new hospitals: focus on energy and emissions
The introduction of controlling in the area of environment with a focus on energy and emissions forms an important part of our integration management following the takeover of a hospital. The starting point is a thoroughgoing review in the areas of electricity, heat, water and waste with reference to the hospital’s trend in case numbers. In addition, staff from the Technical Controlling department perform an on-site inspection, subjecting the hospital’s technical facilities to a critical review. Once this has been done, a list of measures is drawn up together with those responsible locally which, during the entire integration, serves as the key guideline for optimising the hospital’s technical operations as quickly as possible. Immediate measures in existing technical facilities frequently involve the following:
- systematic control of heating, ventilation and air conditioning units based on requirements
- avoiding the use of air humidifiers and dehumidifiers
- using energy-saving units and systems
- replacing steam as an energy source
if possible, refurbishing and modernisation investments are additionally made; these help cut energy consumption and emissions significantly.
These include:
- for (partial or replacement) new buildings: creation of compact building structures
- optimum building insulation
- modernisation of technical facilities, for example in the area of steam supply
- using intelligent control strategies
- making sparing use of resources by installing cogeneration plants to supply energy
- using efficient cooling units
- promoting innovative, low-emission energy technologies such as fuel cells
- using renewable forms of energy such as geothermal heat and hydro-power.
To ensure the sustainability of our controlling, we introduce a reporting duty in the area of energy whenever we take over a hospital. As a rule, benchmarking is possible only to a limited extent given the very different care profiles and building structures of our hospitals, but we can quickly detect changes in consumption and analyse their causes.
Other areas of focus of our environmental management
In addition to the management of energy and emissions as described above, our environmental management is also focused on the areas of water consumption, material use and safety:
Making sparing use of water by
- use of water-conserving jet controllers
- use of grey water
- use of water-conserving technologies.
Reducing waste by
- applying the principle of waste avoidance and recycling
- specific training of staff
- introduction of digital imaging methods in radiology: decline in clinical waste (fixing and developing solutions, X-ray films)
Ensuring greater safety for the environment and staff by
- use of registers for hazardous materials
- systematic evaluation of risks posed by hazardous materials and contamination prior to acquisition
- proper disposal of any existing hazardous materials
- specific fire safety measures
- regular training of staff in fire safety and hazardous materials.
