Earlier this year, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced a new LEED® program for hospitals and other health care facilities. The LEED for Healthcare rating system goes beyond the LEED for New Construction rating system, combining it with strong elements of the Green Guide for Health Care (GGHC), its predecessor, which was introduced in 2007.
“The industry as a whole has clearly embraced the Green Guide’s proposal that, in the health care market, the definition of green building must be fundamentally tied to health care’s mission, to ‘first, do no harm,’ ” stated a report on the pilot program.