The day before this year’s World Hospital Congress, the IHF’s Geneva Sustainability Centre, in collaboration with Deloitte, launched an innovative new platform to digitally empower hospitals and healthcare leaders to drive sustainable, low-carbon, equitable, and resilient healthcare.

The research and development for the Sustainability Accelerator Tool (SAT)  https://bit.ly/40NLG1N  began in 2022, soon after the IHF established the Geneva Sustainability Centre to equip hospital leaders with the information, tools, and skills to drive the sector’s transition to sustainability at leadership, management, and institutional levels. Following a period of international consultation, a set of KPIs were defined, forming the underlying framework for SAT. Targeting three key domains (Environment; Health, equity, and wellbeing; and Leadership and governance), SAT has been thoroughly piloted with hospitals from across the IHF’s membership worldwide. Deborah J. Bowen, FACHE CAE, former President of the IHF and President of the American College of Healthcare Executives, stated the case for hospitals and healthcare delivery organizations to start the journey to sustainability: “The healthcare sector is increasingly aware that it is responsible for more than 5% of global carbon emissions. At the IHF, we recognized that healthcare leaders shared a collective will to transform the sustainability and resilience of service delivery but lacked the support to drive change.

Deborah J. Bowen, President and Chief Executive Officer of the American College of Healthcare Executives and former president of the IHF, speaks at the 46th World Hospital Congress in Lisbon.

The IHF established the Geneva Sustainability Centre to develop the programmes and resources to support healthcare leaders to become climate leaders. Working in collaboration with Deloitte has given us the capability to develop a cutting-edge tool that hospitals around the world can use to accelerate their actions and impact.” The cloud-based tool enables executives to report a hospital’s performance against core indicators and compare it to other healthcare organizations worldwide. SAT provides hospital and healthcare executives with a comprehensive solution to assess organizational sustainability maturity and track progress against key performance indicators. The dashboard and benchmarking are specific to the healthcare sector, providing a global reference alongside an institution’s individual progress.

Sara Siegel, Global Head of Healthcare at Deloitte, reflected on the capacity of digital technologies to deliver high impact outcomes: “Deloitte is excited to collaborate with the Geneva Sustainability Centre of the International Hospital Federation to develop the Sustainability Accelerator Tool. A catalyst for global change, the tool will help transform the way that the healthcare sector drives its sustainability agenda. By leveraging cloud technology to actionorient globally relevant sustainability KPIs, hospital and healthcare organizations worldwide can take a collective journey to decarbonize service delivery.” The American Hospital Association (AHA) has already signed an agreement with the Geneva Sustainability Centre to promote the SAT to its network of members across the USA. As the national body representing nearly 5,000 hospitals, health systems and health care organizations, the AHA has identified sustainability as a key area of focus for the field. The tracking and benchmarking functionality of SAT complements the resources and programs it offers to members in support of their sustainability efforts.

On sharing news of the agreement with AHA members, Michelle Hood, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the AHA, said: “Working to reduce the environmental impact from hospitals fits squarely into the mission of hospitals and health systems – that is to care for, serve and advance health for their communities. At the AHA, we recognize the progress being made in the hospital field to reduce emissions and promote environmental stewardship, social equity and fiduciary responsibility to support healthy and resilient environments. We’re pleased to be promoting this new SAT to our members to accelerate this effort.” Ronald Lavater, FACHE, Chief Executive Officer of the IHF added: “The launch of SAT speaks to the power of collaboration – a fundamental principle of the IHF. We are so excited to share this moment with the American Hospital Association, which was a founding member of the IHF back in 1929 and a supporter of knowledge exchange in international healthcare leadership ever since. We are equally thrilled to come together with a new partner, Deloitte, to offer an innovative tool that will help bring the vision of the Geneva Sustainability Centre to life.”

SAT is the latest addition to the Geneva Sustainability Centre’s toolbox of resources developed specifically for executives in the healthcare sector. In July 2023, an online learning tool – the Carbon Emissions Learning Lab (CELL) simulator – was launched for executives to understand the impacts and organizational benefits of sustainability-oriented decision-making. A learning programme, as well as free guides and case studies are already available as the Geneva Sustainability Centre delivers on its mission to equip hospital leaders with the knowledge, skills, and tools to transition to net zero healthcare delivery.