Boston Medical Center primary care physician Anna Goldman grew weary of hearing that her patients lacked the funds to power their refrigerators, put on air conditioning, recharge wheelchairs, or operate breathing support machines. In order to find a solution, she collaborated with her hospital.
The outcome is the Clean Power Prescription initiative, a trial project. Approximately 80 individuals with complicated, long-term medical demands will benefit from the program’s efforts to keep the lights on.
519 solar panels mounted on the roof of one of the hospital’s office buildings are the program’s main source of power. The medical center is powered by half of the energy produced by the panels. The remainder is given to patients who get a $50 monthly electric bill credit.
One of the earliest awardees was Kiki Polk. She has a history of excessive blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes.
Polk, who was nine months pregnant at the time, leaned into her living room’s air conditioner window unit on a warm October day.
My goodness, this feels wonderful, sweetie. Polk swayed back and forth while crooning. This person is both my worst adversary and my dearest friend.
Polk’s inability to pay for air conditioning makes him an adversary. She has opened a window or utilized a fan on colder days. Polk was aware that overheating during pregnancy might endanger the fetus and put additional strain on the pregnant person’s heart. Additionally, her mother claims that her adolescent daughter uses the air conditioner in her bedroom excessively.
Polk’s utility bill was past due.She worked out a payment arrangement with her electricity provider, Eversource. Polk, who works as a lunchroom and school bus monitor, still had a lot of debts. She was taken aback by the assistance extended by the Boston Medical Center staff, where she was a patient.
Polk remarked, “I always think they’re there only for, you know, medical stuff, not the personal financial stuff.”
Polk is currently taking care of her infant daughter, Briana Moore, while on maternity leave.
Hospital screening surveys reveal that thousands of patients, including Polk, have difficulty paying their power bills, according to Goldman, who is also BMC’s medical director of climate and sustainability.
According to Goldman, I recently spoke with someone who had a hospital bed at home. They faced a utility shut-off because they were using so much energy due to the hospital bed.
Goldman requested that the power be maintained in a letter to the utility provider. She and her coworkers at Boston Medical Center sent 1,674 letters to utility companies last year requesting that they continue to provide gas or power to patients. Goldman presented that figure to Bob Biggio, the chief sustainability and real estate officer of the hospital. Sharing the power with patients felt like it aligned with the health system’s goal, even if he had been banking on the solar panels to help the hospital transition to renewable energy.
For more than a century, Boston Medical Center has worked to improve the health of underprivileged areas, according to Biggio. This seemed to be the appropriate course of action.
Goldman, standing atop the solar panels on the roof, gestured toward a sizable vegetable garden located one storey below.
In reality, we’re cultivating food for our patients, she explained. Similarly, in order to address all of the variables that can affect health outcomes, we are now generating electricity for our patients.
Since research indicates that not having power or heating aid worsens respiratory issues, mental distress, and makes it more difficult to go asleep, many hospitals assist patients in enrolling. These are typical issues for patients with low and moderate incomes, according to physician Aparna Bole, a senior adviser in the federal Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Climate Change and Health Equity. According to her, BMC’s strategy for resolving them might be the first of its type.
According to Bole, it is truly revolutionary to be able to provide those patients with clean, renewable energy in a way that lowers their utility costs.
Bole is demonstrating to other hospitals how they could implement a similar program by using a case study on the solar credits scheme. According to authorities at Boston Medical Center, 60% of the project’s estimated $1.6 million in funding came from the federal Inflation Reduction Act. Plans for an extra $11 million in solar projects have already been laid out by Biggio.
He stated, “We want to scale this pilot and help a lot more patients.”
His proposed expansion would enable the program to serve 10 times as many patients, but it would still fall short of demand. As of right now, the pilot program offers support to each patient for a single year. In order to receive a larger federal tax credit or reimbursement, Boston Medical Center is seeking partners who may be interested in sharing their solar energy with the hospital’s patients.
Tilak Subrahmanian, vice president for energy efficiency at Eversource, stated that while the pilot was a challenging initiative to start, it could now be expanded.
“There is such a need that we’ll figure it out if other institutions are willing to step up,” Subrahmanian stated.
____
This item comes from a collaboration between KFF Health News, NPR, and WBUR.
___
(One of the main projects of KFF, the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism, is KFF Health News, a nationwide newsroom that delivers in-depth journalism about health issues.)
KFF Health News, 2024. Tribune Content Agency, LLC is the distributor.
Note: Every piece of content is rigorously reviewed by our team of experienced writers and editors to ensure its accuracy. Our writers use credible sources and adhere to strict fact-checking protocols to verify all claims and data before publication. If an error is identified, we promptly correct it and strive for transparency in all updates, feel free to reach out to us via email. We appreciate your trust and support!
