TOWNSHEND — As a major health-care provider in Windham County, we'd like to share a recent success story that demonstrates how investing in energy efficiency has helped us provide better care to our community by reducing our operating costs while providing better comfort to our patients and staff.
At Grace Cottage Family Health & Hospital, our vision is to provide excellent patient-centered care and to preserve and prolong the well-being of the whole community. In order to do this, we need to keep our patients and staff warm.
Thanks to donations from a very generous community, and to technical guidance and financial help from Efficiency Vermont, we've recently completed a major upgrade to our heating, cooling, and ventilation system at Grace Cottage Family Health, our Rural Health Clinic.
This effort and an earlier one to upgrade lighting throughout the facility have reinforced how important it is to focus on the efficiency of the facilities where we provide care.
Operating the hospital, clinic, rehabilitation department, pharmacy, and other supporting services requires a lot of energy, and thus costs a lot of money. Our partnership with Efficiency Vermont has helped us to make great strides to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Efficiency Vermont provided technical guidance and financial help, beginning with an engineering audit of our clinic building, which led to comprehensive, state-of-the art efficiency upgrades: insulation and air sealing to reduce heat loss, replacing our old oil-fired boiler and window air conditioning units with a high efficiency heat pump system, providing fresh air through an energy recovery ventilation system, and upgrading our lighting to modern LED technology.
We're committed to continuously improving our operations and the service we provide our community as we aim for excellence.