A Method for Quantifying the Benefits of Greening a Healthcare Facility

The healthcare industry has begun to examine the role, impacts, and implications of healthcare facilities on people's health inside and outside their walls. This article reports a snapshot of findings from a multi-year research project of a new green Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh. It identifies key data analysis areas and a method that can be used for comparing the benefits of greening a healthcare facility. A plan for an analysis of the economic benefits of green buildings, using break-even analysis, benefit cost ratio, and net present value is discussed, along with describing how to draw conclusions about the positive impact of the greening to the economic, environmental, productivity and satisfaction metrics of the healthcare industry.