Boulder Community Hospital's Foothills Campus is the first LEED certified hospital in the nation. Kai Ablekis, Environmental Manager, takes us on a tour. This segment demonstrates several convenient answers related to changing a light bulb at the BCH hospital(s).  Change a light, change a hospital, change a town, change the world.  

Or see it on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFW4l0XV5bE. 

The department of surgery manager Julie Moyle has a different take,  It is easier to see.  The docs, especially the facial plastic surgeons, like the light.   It is easier to see slight variations of color.   Julie remarks, "When the staff leave the areas lit with the spectrally enhanced Sunwave lamps, it is like getting instant cataracts."  She has also been looking into at staff sick days or other human resources benefits fewer headaches, fewer sick days etc.  fewer mistakes... While this is not a scientific study, there is some indication that the lighting may be having a beneficial effect. 

Not all the lighting in the LEED certified hospital has been changed to spectrally enhanced lighting, but some of the lighting in the other campuses has also been changed to Sunwave 5550K 93CRI, so it works at newly LEED certified hospitals and at existing facitilites in the areas where visual acquity and color discriminiation are critical.

For these applications, they are continuing to see the light so to speak, even though the lamps cost slightly more than the generics that they had been using.    This project involved small incremental investments, starting in a dimly lit storage room and now in basement and other offices without windows, in the ERs, ORs, sterile storage rooms, Mom and Well Baby Unit, the Pharmacys and the Nursing Stations are lit with Sunwave's T8 Plus, Low Wattage, Extra Long Life, Spectrally Enhanced "Full Spectrum" lighting. 

Read more of the story at Change Agents dot com.  http://www.changents.com/change-agents/sunwavelighting/story