LEED for Healthcare Open for Project Registration

Seven years in the making and the result of a partnership between the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and the Green Guide for Healthcare (GGHC), LEED for Healthcare passed member ballot with an 87% approval rating in November 2010. The final version of the rating system is quite different from the first public-comment version, which was released in 2007—some of the more innovative credits, such as one calling for views to the outdoors from in-patient units (not just patient rooms) were removed. Two LEED for Healthcare credits were put into LEED’s pilot credit library: one covering the energy efficiency of medical process equipment, and another requiring reduced levels of dioxins and halogenated compounds. But the published rating system retains an integrated design prerequisite—an element no other rating system has. Projects can now register for the rating system through LEED Online, although full LEED Online documentation is not yet available. More information is available at www.usgbc.org/leed/healthcare/.