Reducing Our Environmental Impact through Better Utilization of Linen
At HHS, we understand that the earth’s resources are a precious commodity and by reducing our environmental impact, we can help make a difference in protecting the resources we have left. In honor of Earth Day and National Laundry and Linen Week, we’d like to share insight into our Linen Utilization Management (LUM) service line and how it has helped improve sustainability efforts for the partners we serve.
Our LUM program, introduced in 2015, was designed to help hospitals increase efficiency and create a more sustainable approach to resource utilization. By incorporating LUM into their current linen and laundry services, dozens of our partners throughout the United States have been able to reduce their linen usage by more than 22 millions pounds.
This notable reduction in linen usage, achieved by bringing transparency to linen processing and closely monitoring the use and disposal of linen, has had a considerable effect on the sustainability of each program and reduction of each facility’s carbon footprint.
By eliminating more than 22 million pounds of unnecessary linen usage, the HHS LUM program has helped our hospital partners to collectively:
“The HHS LUM Program helps hospitals become more environmentally sustainable by providing real-time visibility into hospital linen programs, which allows proactive managers to reduce unnecessary waste and improve operational efficiency,” explains Jake McCuistion, Executive Vice President of Patient Flow and Linen Utilization Management.
“The end results is a significant cost savings -- as well as reduced environmental impact -- for our partners.”
Our LUM program is just a small contribution to environmental stewardship and we realize there is always room for improvement in our conservation efforts. As we move forward as a company, it’s our goal to continue to learn ways to refine our processes to help reduce the impact we -- and our partners -- have on the environment.