A children’s hospital, a solar field shaped like a giraffe, and a mission

Valley Children’s Healthcare uses a giraffe for more than branding purposes.

George the Giraffe, the mascot of the pediatric health system in California, inspired the design of an array of solar panels.

Viewed from above, the solar panels are arranged in the shape of a giraffe. The solar array was completed earlier this year.

Todd Suntrapak, president and CEO of Valley Children’s Healthcare, says he loved the idea right away, and thought it would delight kids and possibly even inspire their curiosity.

“I was instantly taken with it, and thought it was such a great and creative idea,” he tells Chief Healthcare Executive®.

“Everybody loved it, and it's a little bit more of an expense,” he says. “But given that we are all about kids and establishing what we believe is the first micro grid to support any pediatric hospital in the country, it just seemed to make a lot of sense to spend a little more and add some whimsy.”

Protecting patient care

The inspired design may be charming, but it also aptly illustrates Valley Children’s focus on sustainability and relying on its own power.

Based in California’s Central Valley, Valley Children’s Healthcare has been investing to ensure it can provide its own power and be protected from disruptions caused by brownouts or wildfires.

Suntrapak says the system needs to “ensure that we have uninterrupted service as we care for children.

“As we look at the patients that we're taking care of as inpatients every day, about 45% of them are critically ill,” he says. “And that's not a patient population that you want to have a hiccup with when it comes to power supply, whether that's a power outage while you're in the middle of a surgery or when you're ventilating a patient and they're obviously have mechanical device breathing for them that's dependent upon electricity.”

“So first and foremost, it's about ensuring that our patient care is never interrupted, and that we do not have to rely upon external resources to meet our mission to the extent we're able,” he says.

Valley Children’s isn’t quite able to produce all of its own energy yet. But Suntrapak says that the micro grid will provide 80% of the system’s power needs.

He points to the potential danger of wildfires disrupting power supplies.

“Some of the power transmission lines are running through pretty rugged country that are very susceptible to wildfires,” he says, adding, “We don't want to fall victim to a power transmission issue up the line somewhere that again impacts our ability to provide patient care.”

Suntrapak also points out the value of reducing the organization’s carbon footprint, and other health systems have said their sustainability efforts are rooted in their mission to improve the overall health of their communities. He says the sustainability efforts reduce the system’s carbon footprint by more than 50 percent.

‘Stand on our own two feet’

Valley Children’s is able to invest in producing its own energy due to the health system’s strong financial position, and he lauds his team for its deft financial management. The system has more than 600 days of cash on hand, well above other peers in a key measure of fiscal health.

"It's difficult math for many organizations to do. We are very blessed to be in a position to be able to make this investment in the future, not just of the organization, but the future of the kids that live in our region to have cleaner energy,” he says.

Valley Children’s also expects to reduce its energy costs over time. Suntrapak projects the micro grid will have a positive operating gain in seven years.

Still, he says even with a strong balance sheet, it’s not easy to make such investments. He points out that reimbursement rates from Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, have remained flat for more than a decade.

Suntrapak says the organization needs to weigh the long-term impact of its sustainability efforts. He also says other health systems should look at their long-term energy strategy, in terms of sustainability and financial stability.

“I think for any organization, looking at what you want your energy strategy to be is key,” he says. “Because I do think in an environment, whether it's part of the country where we have hurricanes that are kind of disrupting the power grid, or out here on the left coast, as I say, sometimes with fire-related damage to the transmission lines and grid, it's really, really important that we can stand on our own two feet, and I think that's true of all healthcare providers.”

The Joint Commission offers a sustainability certification program for health systems. Valley Children’s became the second pediatric hospital in the nation to earn the certification.

Suntrapak says the recognition from the commission has been meaningful in a number of ways.

“I think our entire organization was proud of that accomplishment,” he says. “But I think really they were even more proud that we were so focused on sustainable solutions that also had an environmental impact that was net positive, and that we were leading and not following.”

“We live in a region where the air quality is difficult, especially in the summer months,” Suntrapak adds. “So, the fact that we are going to have cleaner energy means a lot to our team of clinicians that have spent their entire lives being trained, and/or then using their skills to heal children, and it doesn't make sense to heal them and then turn them out into an environmentally tricky situation.”