Hospital wins environmental award for partnership with local farmers, other efforts

Dignity Health Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital (SNMH) in Grass Valley, Calif., has won the Practice Greenhealth Partner for Change Award for several of its sustainability efforts.

In addition to recycling at least 15% of its total waste, reducing medical waste and mercury, and using sustainable and environmentally friendly products at the hospital, SNMH has developed a partnership with local food growers.

“I believe one of the most effective preventative medicines we have is the food that we eat,” Erin Silverman, a nurse at SNMH, told The Union.

SNMH’s staff-driven Green Team, a committee that focuses on environmental efforts, helped the hospital become a CSA drop-off site for Mountain Bounty Farms in 2015. Since then, the hospital has started to host a “harvest of the month” to introduce hospital cafe guests to locally grown fruits and vegetables.

“Our purchasing power is incredible. We have already affected change by demanding better products and ways of doing things,” Silverman said.