HEALTHCARE
TIMOTHY VERMEIR – EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, ZORG MAGAZINE, ZORG & TECHNIEK, AND INFUUS, BELGIUM KARL ZWINNEN – PROJECT ENGINEER, JESSA ZIEKENHUIS HOSPITAL, BELGIUM
Sustainable enterprise in Belgian healthcare
After his previous experiences in the private sector, Karl Zwinnen made a conscious decision to start working in healthcare. Timothy Vermeir met Karl at the hospital Jessa Ziekenhuis in Hasselt, Belgium, where Karl works as a project engineer, to talk about how he divides his time between facility projects and preparatory works, and the sustainable entrepreneurship of the organisation.
The different roles held by Karl Zwinnen require some explanation. On one hand he is, in the technical department of the hospital Jessa Ziekenhuis in Hasselt, Belgium, project engineer concerned with wet techniques. “This was the function which I held when I started here at the end of 2017,” he says. However, “after approximately one year arose the idea within the hospital to go for plainly sustainable entrepreneurship, and that’s when I decided to fully focus on this.” Today, a lot of Karl’s attention goes to
a third subject that concerns him. “About one year ago, the hospital announced that a new facility would be built. The project team that is concerned with the preparation of this project, started with loose sketches to come to a completely new hospital. The techniques are part of the project as well, which is how I am also closely involved with the project. I work together with the other colleagues that are concerned with the construction, but also with the people that are involved with the tender procedures and those who are managing the budget. This way, everyone involved plays his part.”
Working together intensively This new building project is, in itself, extremely interesting, but it also seems to be an important eye-opener. Karl Zwinnen: “By working closely together now, I noticed that everyone had been sort of isolated from one another, everyone was kind of minding his own business. Every segment – IT, research department, technical department … throughout the years developed its own way of working. Now we try to work together as one team, because eventually all of the aforementioned segments will come together in the new facility. For example, when it comes to data rooms, IT decides on both the form and the content. When it comes to the cooling of these data rooms, engineers
94 Jessa Ziekenhuis Hospital.
have to give input to wet techniques – and we also involve the colleagues that are concerned with electricity. At the very start, this working together was not so easy – not because we did not want to, but because we are only working together on very few occasions. In the current facility, each segment works a lot more on its own. I did know the colleagues, of course, but we rarely worked together. Now that we are working together, we are learning from each other why certain things are done in a certain way. That is very valuable.” There is not only the cooperation
between various technical experts – the new building project also leads to intensive cooperation between project teams in all sections (medical and non-medical) of the hospital. Karl Zwinnen explains how the project team examines the functioning of the different sections. “What is it that they
Karl Zwinnen Karl Zwinnen is a
project engineer at
The Jessa Hospital in the Belgian city of
Hasselt, where he is involved in research department
infrastructure and master planning.
are doing exactly? Where are they doing this? How do they want to work in the future? Only when all of this has been cleared out, the team will decide on the amount of square metres and the number of techniques.” He summarises the approach thus: “We are constructing a building in function of the processes – we are not trying to squeeze the processes into the new facility. The new facility will have to adapt itself to our processes, our people and our patients.” Did the corona crisis have an impact on the ideas with regards to the new facility? “Yes, as a matter of fact it did,” Karl says. “Today, aeration suddenly became more important, whereas prior to the crisis this was deemed to be okay. Prior to the corona crisis, the amount of cubic metres of fresh air we let inside the room was not that important. Now, however, this is being monitored more stringently. We are frequently asked to ventilate more, also in spaces where this is hardly possible. In that area, we are being more and more challenged.”
Demonstrably sustainable Sustainability is, together with the existing and the future facilities, a key focus of Karl’s. “Three years ago, we decided to show that we, within Jessa Ziekenhuis, were able to run a sustainable entrepreneurship,” he says. “We have then entered into a partnership with VOKA. They help us clarify what sustainability is according to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.” These ‘global goals for sustainable
development’ are a collection of seventeen social, ecological, and climate goals that are listed by the UN. They provide a basis for governments and organisations when it comes to the efforts they make with regards to sustainability. “For three years, we have looked at at
least ten sustainability projects or ideas which we will bet on,” says Karl Zwinnen. “After these three years, we were able to
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