Texas Health Resources

Honoree: Enterprise – Healthcare Industry

Company Overview

Texas Health Resources is one of the largest faith-based nonprofit health systems in the U.S. and the largest in North Texas in terms of patients served. Texas Health is headquartered in Arlington, Texas, and has a team of more than 24,000 employees and 29 hospital locations. Texas Health strives to improve the health of people in the communities that they serve and aims to operate sustainably through operational effectiveness, innovative care, and a high-performing culture.

Sustainable Business Strategy

Conservation of resources is vital to Texas Health’s long-term sustainability and to the well-being of the people living in the communities they serve. As a health system, Texas Health believes that conservation is much more than simply using less energy and water—it is about providing the most affordable, accessible, and appropriate resources to improve people’s health. Not only is conservation about making strategic investments to operate more efficiently and consume fewer materials, it is also about reducing health disparities, addressing social determinants of health, and improving the health outcomes for North Texans who have limited resources—or none at all.

As a High Reliability Organization¹, Texas Health works to reduce any strain on both the natural and manmade resources they depend on to succeed. With prudent management, Texas Health lowers operating expenses and the cost of care, achieves community health improvement goals, implements innovative business practices, and reduces the potential for harm for generations to come.

Environmental Stewardship

Resource conservation is governed by Texas Health’s Board of Trustees and senior leadership team. Each employee is responsible for managing resources wisely, whether that entails managing procurement, utilization, reuse or recycling, advocating for policies and legislation that conserve fiscal resources, or spearheading initiatives that provide access to services for people in need.

Texas Health encourages its employees in various business units to join their sustainability efforts. These departments—from Finance, to Faith and Spirituality, to Information Services, and System Engineering—all play an integral role in Texas Health’s conservation and sustainability efforts.

Conservation Programs

Natural Resources Management

Within their walls, Texas Health has recently taken many steps to conserve natural resources. Texas Health strives to be mindful of their footprint, implementing constant sustainability efforts and consistently looking for ways to improve. From energy-efficient buildings to repurposing and recycling their waste materials and low water-use irrigation, Texas Health is committed to conservation. Some highlights of their conservation work include:

Annually invests millions of dollars in projects that improve efficiency and lower natural gas consumption
Curtailed consumption by 2.56% over the last five years, despite system growth, saving $15 million
Installed water-efficient irrigation, sprinkler, and plumbing systems, and participated in a laundry cooperative that conserves millions of gallons of water annually
Diverted hundreds of thousands of pounds of materials, including medical devices and single-use products, from landfills through recycling, reusing, or reprocessing initiatives
Diverted an estimated 108,000 lbs of medical devices from landfills and avoided $750,000 in disposal costs in 2018
Hosts community shredding and recycling drives
Participates in a group purchasing organization to source better, healthier, and more environmentally friendly products at a lower price
Launched a five-year, $500 million cost-cutting campaign to maximize efficiencies and preserve capital
Provides pastoral care resources virtually to employees, patients, and their families as well as volunteers. Not only does this reduce paper use, it meets the faith and spirituality needs of various stakeholders with minimal impacts
Invested about $5 million in 32 building projects to reduce energy consumption in 2018
Curtailed natural gas consumption by 2.56% over the last five years, saving $15 million
Reduced electricity usage by 16% since 2011, saving $11.2 million
Since 2015, reduced water consumption by 5.6%, recycled 52 tons of e-waste, recycled 2.5 million pounds of paper, and saved 21,139 trees

Community Involvement

In addition to the conservation of natural resources, Texas Health gives back to the Texans they serve. Every year, Texas Health mobilizes people and resources to drive change and support vital community health programs. Some of their key work includes:

Co-created Southwestern Health Resources (with UT Southwestern Medical Center and affiliated with Aetna) to deliver more affordable and coordinated care
Collaborated with a mobile urgent care provider and UT Southwestern Medical Center to cost-effectively expand health services to the growing North Texas population
Helped Fort Worth save an estimated $4.8 million by steering city employees to telehealth or primary care services to reduce Emergency Department visits
Helped transform Fort Worth into a certified Blue Zones Community^®to help its citizens live longer, healthier, and happier lives
Launched Texas Health Community Impact, which awards grants to address social determinants of health in innovative ways
Advocated for preserving health insurance coverage and providing access to care for people living in underserved areas
Volunteered 11,033 hours to complete 621 service projects in 2018
Provided nearly $843 million—$2.3 million a day—in charity care and community benefit in 2018

Building a Sustainable Future

Looking ahead, Texas Health believes the need for conservation—in health care and in all facets of life—is only going to escalate as the state’s population continues to grow. Texas’ resources are finite, and managing them well will require government, business, and civic organizations to come together to design, fund, and implement meaningful solutions.

Texas Health’s 350+ care access points and services, ranging from acute-care hospitals and trauma centers to outpatient facilities and home health and preventive services, provide the full continuum of care for all stages of life. To effectively maintain them, they will judiciously consider and assess the resources they need at the individual, entity, and system level. Texas Health will also place greater attention on optimizing the systems and processes they control directly and the materials they consume.

In terms of an ongoing collaboration, Texas Health plans to continue aligning with like-minded organizations. These organizations are best-suited for sharing resources to reduce both costs and impacts in order to continue to improve individual and population health.

Texan-Led Conservation

Texas Health’s history is rooted in the healing ministries of the Presbyterian Church and the United Methodist Church. Their faith-based heritage and traditions are at the heart of everything they do. Texas Health was formed in 1997 after combining the operations of three highly respected organizations into one health care system: Harris Methodist Health System in Fort Worth, Presbyterian Healthcare Resources in Dallas, and Arlington Memorial Hospital.

Today, Texas Health serves more than 7 million residents in 16 counties in North Texas, and employs more than 24,000 people who call this region their home. They have a vested interest in improving the health and well-being of the North Texas community, because this is where their own families live, work, and play. Protecting their financial, emotional, mental, and physical well-being is Texas Health’s calling. They take great pride in our state and in their role as a health care leader. Definitions: