HCA Healthcare – Nick Fassler – 2010

Goals

Nick Fassler spent the summer of 2010 as an EDF Climate Corp fellow at Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), one of the nation’s leading healthcare providers. A joint MBA/MS student at the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute, Nick helped analyze efficiency opportunities and strategy across HCA’s portfolio of hospitals. 
Nick learned that many hospitals use over 100 types of lamps and fixtures. Furthermore, he found that the average American hospital uses 2.5 times the amount of energy as other commercial buildings, adding up to 836 trillion BTU’s or $5 billion annually, based on Department of Energy (DOE) data. Needless to say, Nick realized energy efficiency represents a huge opportunity for hospitals and the healthcare industry.

Solutions

HCA had Nick scrutinize the results of lighting audits at four different hospitals representative of the company’s portfolio. Next, Nick put together a recommendation for lighting retrofits at facilities nationwide.

Potential Impact

Fassler’s financial analysis showed that if the lighting retrofits are rolled out to most of HCA’s more than 160 hospitals, the company could cut 82 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year, saving $7.8 million in electricity costs and 52,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually. Over the lifetime of the project, this could save the company $14.7 million in net operating costs. Nick’s work helped to create a foundation for HCA’s continued sustainability efforts that will help reduce energy use, energy costs and CO2 emissions. HCA has begun rolling out these retrofits.