Health Costs, Hospitals, and LED Lighting

With President Obama pushing Congress to hurry up and pass health care reform legislation, we figured it would be a good time to remind everyone of a juicy piece of low-hanging, cost-saving, environmentally-friendly health-care-fruit.

Hospitals are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so they never turn their lights off. That means they spend heaps of money on electricity and over 50% of that money on lighting. And that means that a significant reduction in lighting costs to hospitals would produce some very big savings.

How big, you ask?

Well, according to the math that we and our colleagues at LED Saving Solutions did last fall, every hospital that switches to LED lighting will save half a million dollars a year, with zero up front cost.

This is obviously not THE solution to America's health care cost crisis, but, since the President wants to have all the ideas on the table, we don't think he - or hospitals - or anyone - should overlook this one.