A foreward thinking hospital group optimizes its water usage
OBJECTIVE
In addition to accreditation standards from the Joint Commission on Emergency Water, California hospitals will be required by 2030 to have 150 gallons / licensed bed of water available in the event of an emergency. To get out front on needs for 2030, a forward thinking Northern California hospital chain asked Rethinkh2o to assess emergency water preparedness in all of their ~30 acute care facilities. While evaluating sources and uses to evaluate resiliency, we were also asked to identify water conservation / usage opportunities that can deliver value.
SOLUTION
For each facility in the system, Rethinkh2o engineers reviewed a minimum of 12 months of data on water consumption and then traveled to all the hospital system’s facilities to review sources and uses of water as well as risks to the supply as well as on-site. While on-site we discussed in practical terms what happens in emergency water outages and common pitfalls / assumptions / mistakes and the reality behind them using learnings from Tuscaloosa Tornado, Christchurch Earthquake, Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina.
Each facility received a custom report detailing
- Risks to the municipal supply providing water to the facility
- Differences between standard facility practices and overall system best practices
- Gaps between Emergency water required and currently available for each facility
- Plan to close the gap with cost estimates for capital items If necessary
The system leaders received
- Compendium of best practices in water management observed in practice at various facilities in the system
- Comparison of facility water usage in a variety of categories within the system and against our proprietary data base of hundreds of hospitals
- Recommendations and priorities for non-capital system wide improvements
- Recommendations and priorities for capital investments that would generate a favorable ROI
OUTCOME
Recent California drought refocused follow up efforts on operational reductions. Data gathered and provided input to operators seeking to drive down daily water consumption. Emergency water requirements took a back seek to achieving operational savings in conjunction with drought inspired savings targets.