Going Green in Medical Imaging

Vendor programs set targets, highlight product features

Companies with some of the biggest names in medical imaging equipment have established programs to set environmental targets for themselves and to highlight their products’ green features.

Why do these manufacturers think it is important for the healthcare field to be environmentally friendly? Their answers reflect a mixture of business savvy and concern for protecting the Earth.

“The Earth is an irreplaceable asset, and we’re doing the right thing to try to take care of it. I think, at the end of the day, that’s the No. 1 thing,” says Doug Ryan, senior director of the CT unit of Tustin, Calif.-based Toshiba America Medical Systems. Citing a statement by Toshiba Medical’s president and CEO, Masamichi Katsurada, about having a duty to ensure a healthy environment for the next generation, Ryan says the company has been working to reduce the use of hazardous substances.

“That’s the major trend in a lot of companies, in going away from those types of technologies and looking for something a little more environmentally conscious,” he adds. “We find that a lot of businesses we’re working with today want to do business with companies that are focused on environmentally conscious practices, and I think that’s how it really affects customers the most.”

Hans van der Wel, PhD, senior manager of ecodesign and sustainability for Philips Healthcare in Andover, Mass., says its Netherlands-based parent company, Royal Philips Electronics, is motivated by a sense of corporate responsibility, but that legislation is also a factor. “We also need to look at the competition. They’re doing similar things. We want to stay ahead of them, of course,” he adds. van der Wel says hospitals also consider going green to be important for saving costs and improving their image.

Healthcare is a very energy-intensive field, says David Searles, director of Fairfield, Conn.-based GE’s ecomagination program. While manufacturing facilities may shut down on weekends or at night, hospitals are always operating and consuming power. Searles says that gives hospitals a great opportunity to continue to improve energy consumption and efficiency. He adds many people working in hospitals want to be part of an organization that is respectful of the environment while providing the highest quality healthcare.

Program Overviews

Searles explains that ecomagination is a global business strategy GE launched in 2005. “It’s important to recognize that it is in fact a business strategy that’s all centered around our view that ‘green is green.’ We wanted to be a leader in this space to demonstrate that reducing impact on the environment can be good for business for all of our customers across GE,” he says. “But it’s not strictly about environment; it’s about helping the environment and improving the bottom line. So creating profitable solutions for our customers has kind of been the hallmark for the ecomagination program.”

van der Wel says Philips has had programs since the 1970s to reduce emissions and improve processes. In the 1990s, the focus shifted onto the environmental impact of the company’s products. Among the indicators Philips relies on, van der Wel says, are reduced hazardous materials usage, cutting down on packaging materials, and improved recyclability.

Philips’ EcoVision4 program, which will run through 2012, aims to generate 30 percent of total revenues from green products, double investments in green innovations, and increase operational energy efficiency by 25 percent. One of the program’s missions is to incorporate environmental reasoning into product design, van der Wel says. Additionally, Philips requires its own suppliers to conform to a sustainability code.

Ryan says Toshiba has three core environmental focuses: reducing power use, cutting emissions in logistics, and lowering the amount of waste going to landfills. Toshiba’s MR models produced today use 35 percent less power than those manufactured in 2001; for ultrasound products, the figure is 30 percent, while for CT and X-ray equipment, the numbers are 20 percent. As far as reducing emissions in logistics, the company’s field and sales personnel are using hybrid vehicles. Lastly, the company wants to be able to manufacture medical products within the next decade that have no waste going to landfills.

GE’s ecomagination program is characterized by five commitments, the first of which is to double research and development, Searles says. “We believe innovation is at the core of ecomagination. In order to make fundamental changes in infrastructure and within healthcare, we need new technology. That’s very common, and it’s always kind of been the hallmark of the healthcare business as well,” he says. According to GE’s 2008 ecomagination annual report, the company invested $1.4 billion that year in research and development of cleaner technology.

Another aspect of GE’s program is to increase its ecomagination product portfolio and sales revenues. Starting with 15 products in 2005, the ecomagination portfolio now numbers more than 80. According to the 2008 ecomagination report, revenue from the products on the portfolio had grown to $17 billion, a 21-percent increase over the previous year.

Searles says the company has also set greenhouse gas and energy efficiency targets, including a reduction in worldwide 2012 greenhouse emissions by 1 percent lower than 2004 levels. GE has also set a goal of reducing water usage by 20 percent in 2012, compared to 2006. Searles says the final aspect of ecomagination is to keep the public informed about GE’s environmental progress.

Green Products

In order to be included in the ecomagination portfolio, Searles says, products must demonstrate significant and measurable operating and environmental benefits. A team that includes a third-party environmental consultant reviews nominated products. The process includes developing quantitative measurements of the products’ benefits to the customer and environmental impact. “It’s very important for us that we have that rigor and the detailed calculations behind any claim that we make,” Searles says.

The portfolio includes GE’s ecomagination hospital program, through which the company helps hospitals incorporate steps throughout their operations – including power generation, lighting, water use, and healthcare technology – to become more green.

Earlier this year, GE’s digital X-ray product line joined the portfolio. With a single digital unit able to replace two analog systems, Searles says, it provides increased productivity and quality care with reduced environmental impact. “This will eliminate the need for water and film processing, eliminates chemicals that are involved with film processing, and it helps to eliminate the storage of paper over time. We recognize that hospitals have requirements, but as we transition the system, ultimately the goal is that these could be processed and retained electronically over time. So we think this one certainly meets the criteria here,” he adds.

The Sigma HDe 1.5-Tesla MRI is also in the ecomagination portfolio. “Because of its innovative water-cooling technology, it’s really able to reduce energy consumption both while it’s operating and while it’s not operating, as well as providing the quality of care for the MRI and excellent imaging,” Searles says. Also, it is designed to use 20 percent less space than the average 1.5-T MRI system.

Likewise, the Voluson E series ultrasound is able to decrease scan time and lower power consumption. Searles says, “For example, the Voluson E6 can consume about 770 kilowatt-hours less electricity than prior GE technology for the same number of scans, which gives us about a 50-percent savings.”

Among Philips’ green healthcare products is the Achieva 1.5T MRI product line, with a power-saving feature that allows the system to consume energy only when needed. The CX-50 CompactXtreme ultrasound system’s benefits include a 10-percent reduction in packaging weight and 31-percent savings in operating power.

Ryan says Toshiba has done quite a bit to reduce the amount of lead and polyvinyl chloride used in manufacturing its X-ray and ultrasound products. He adds that the Aquilion ONE CT incorporates a power generator in the gantry so that energy that normally turns into heat instead is turned into electricity that goes back to the console. Ryan also says Toshiba will be introducing new eco-friendly products at this year’s meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

Future Directions

According to Ryan, Toshiba’s future efforts will continue to focus on power use, emissions in logistics, and landfill waste. “They’re the three major endeavors of Toshiba at this point in time in the manufacture of medical equipment,” he says.

Searles says GE plans to continue to expand ecomagination by growing the product portfolio, increasing revenue, and improving the company’s environmental footprint. “We’ve spent a lot of time proving that ‘green is green.’ We’ve done it ourselves,” he adds. “We’ll continue to be partnering with customers and work with them in key spaces, such as hospitals and healthcare, to realize some of the opportunities these benefits can provide to industry.”

Similarly, van der Wel says that Philips will continue to work on green sales and product innovation, as well as making its manufacturing as carbon-neutral as possible. One looming prospect is legislation in Europe and elsewhere to restrict a number of hazardous substances, particularly lead.

“That will cause quite some work for us, [and] our design centers to do this, and we are working on this,” van der Wel says. “The health of patient – that’s No.1, but, of course, we want to be a responsible company and also take care for the environment.”

– Mark D. Marotta is associate editor of rt image. Direct all questions and comments to editorial@rt-image.com.