Green Lab Helping Hospitals Turn to Sustainability

Ascent Healthcare Solutions, a leader in delivering healthcare resource sustainability, announced today the unveiling of its innovative Green Lab™, a physical workspace that represents the company’s unique approach to the responsible use of resources in healthcare. Known as the place “where the seed is planted,” the Green Lab is home to the scientists and engineers that work in the heart of Ascent’s Research and Development (R&D). Guided by its principles and passion for enabling the environmental and financial health of hospitals, Ascent’s R&D teams lead the charge in new product identification and development – the “seed” of the company’s innovation and the seed of sustainability for hospitals nationwide.

The Green Lab is furnished, floor to ceiling, using environmentally sound and recycled materials. It also features a real-time LED counter that displays the cumulative amount of waste (in pounds) diverted from U.S. landfills and the supply chain savings achieved by hospitals in 2009 using Ascent’s reprocessing/remanufacturing program. “This is about putting our values to work,” says David Amrhein, Vice President of Operations at Ascent Healthcare Solutions. Amrhein continues, “Every day, our people are making an effort to solve problems in healthcare; the Green Lab captures the transformational impact of our programs and the excitement we have for the work we do.”

Rick Ferreira, Chief Operating Officer of Ascent Healthcare Solutions, explained, “Our mission is to help hospitals become ‘healthier’ by looking more closely at how scarce resources are used. The Green Lab is a reminder of what can be achieved in healthcare while at the same time protecting the environment: by using resources more effectively, critical assets are freed to improve the quality of care.”

Ferreira stated, “Across Ascent’s facilities and on the minds of all our employees is the impact our programs have on reducing environmental harm and creating healthy, sustainable hospitals. As an organization, our culture is based on our steadfast commitment to delivering quality products and services that minimize impact to the environment and support hospitals in being patient-care focused institutions.”

Ascent is an award-winning sustainability innovator and pioneer of the concept of the healthy hospital. It was recently awarded the “Champion for Change” award by Practice Greenhealth in recognition of the dramatic environmental benefits its remanufacturing and reprocessing programs provide to U.S. hospitals and surgery centers.