E-mail this page Reader Comments (below)

By TUX TURKEL, Staff Writer Sunday, October 22, 2006

Medical treatment is never pleasant, but patients and family who visit the new Harold Alfond Center for Cancer Care in Augusta will enter an environment where therapeutic settings, indoor air quality and climate control management have been taken to extreme levels.

Large windows with woodland views, walking paths and open-air patios will provide uplifting connections to the outside world. Furniture and flooring that minimize toxic gas emissions should help patients, staff and visitors breathe easier. High-performance heating equipment, above-average insulation and a white roof that cuts cooling demand will make the building more comfortable and less expensive to operate.

When it opens next summer, the $29 million cancer center will become the first hospital building in Maine that meets strict guidelines set by the U.S. Green Building Council known as LEED, for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design. Executives at MaineGeneral Health, the hospital system that owns the center, said these and other features reflect their goal of creating a building that helps people get well while having a minimum impact on the environment.

"We're in the health-care business," said Chuck Hays, chief operating officer at MaineGeneral Health. "It's important that we set the standard for healthy buildings."

Although they are places of healing, hospitals also create plenty of pollution and waste, and use lots of energy and water. Layers of regulations, the need for a sanitary environment and round-the-clock operation contribute to the problem.

But in recent years, hospital designers have begun extending so-called sustainable or green building practices to health-care facilities. The movement has been embraced by leaders such as California-based Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest nonprofit hospital system, which is integrating green design into millions of square feet of construction planned over the next 10 years.

Many of Maine's 39 hospitals are following these national trends. The reasons go beyond energy issues. Studies have shown that patients with views and access to nature need less medication, cost less to treat and go home sooner. Employees also tend to be more productive and have less sick time in green design buildings, advocates say.

Patient care and staff comfort aside, Maine hospital executives know that the price of construction is dwarfed over time by operating costs. Measures that conserve resources just make good business sense, particularly in a state dominated by nonprofit, community hospitals. MaineGeneral Health operates a medical campus in Augusta with branches in Waterville. More than 14,000 patients are admitted each year, and 66,000 seek emergency care. The system also has rehab, family medicine and other services.

MaineGeneral last year acknowledged the serious link between patient care, energy use and the environment by becoming one of the first businesses to join the state's carbon challenge program, aimed at reducing emissions that contribute to global climate change. It has since switched to cleaner-burning fuel oil, replaced more than 400 windows on the Augusta campus, installed low-flow water appliances and beefed up its recycling program.

Executives knew they wanted to go even further in designing the 55,000-square-foot cancer care center.

One option was to adopt standards set out by the Green Guide for Health Care, a voluntary program that incorporates many elements of LEED.

These include steps to recycle construction waste during building, buying materials from local sources and conserving water and energy. LEED relies on a detailed rating system. Applicants must accumulate points to be certified under the program. Despite the cost and paperwork involved, MaineGeneral wanted to shoot for LEED certification, as a way to document savings. Local publicity about the center's green design also helped the hospital attract donors to its fundraising campaign, Hays said.

"We wanted to make sure we were consistent with our principles," he said.

Green design practices are slowly becoming common in new medical buildings in Maine, according to Ellen Belknap, president of SMRT Inc. in Portland. Belknap's architecture and engineering firm works with more than a dozen Maine hospitals and several medical practices. "We design all our health-care facilities with sustainability in mind," she said. "But some clients, like MaineGeneral, take it to a higher level."

SMRT also is working with Mercy Hospital, which started construction last month on a new, $185 million campus on the Fore River in Portland. Mercy looked closely at LEED, according to Tim Prince, the hospital's vice president for planning. But the cost of documenting all the measures that would achieve LEED certification for the multi-phase project, which won't be done until 2012, was estimated at $400,000.

Instead, Mercy chose to embrace many of the LEED standards, but decided against seeking certification or inclusion in the Green Guide for Health Care program.

"We just say we're building in the most environmentally conscious way possible," Prince said.

These considerations include the hospital's south-facing orientation, which will provide passive solar heat, reduce lighting demand and be therapeutic for patients. Controls will automatically raise and lower temperature and lights based on how rooms are being used at different times of day and night. More than 7,000 trees and bushes will be planted, and an emphasis on natural landscaping will help control stormwater runoff and water consumption. A new bus stop for the 230-bed hospital will help reduce vehicle traffic.

Mercy still has time to make decisions about other details, Prince said, such as low-emission carpeting and cleaning supplies. It also may consider buying electricity from renewable energy sources, as MaineGeneral and some other hospitals are doing.

At SMRT, Belknap said clients such as MaineGeneral Health and Mercy Hospital aren't balking at the added cost of high-performance windows, white, reflective roofs and efficient heating and cooling systems. "These are not extras," Belknap said. "These are standard design practices in this day and age. I think sustainable design is becoming the standard for these facilities."

Staff Writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or at: tturkel@pressherald.com.