New Hospital Embodies Tomah Health's Mission of Service

Tomah, Wis. – Tomah Health is meeting the healthcare needs of area residents while also investing in energy efficiency to reduce its carbon footprint.

That investment led to FOCUS ON ENERGY® presenting Tomah Health officials with a $100,670 check Wednesday, a financial incentive to help offset the cost of energy efficiency measures built into the infrastructure of Tomah Memorial Hospital, which opened October 2.

Tomah Health and the architects of the 140,000-square-foot building worked with Focus on Energy and local utilities, Alliant Energy and We Energies, on the energy-efficient design of the building.

“Anything that we can do to reduce our carbon footprint, we should be able to do… and it saves us money that we don’t have to pass along to our customers, [which] is always a win-win situation,” Tomah Health CEO Phil Stuart said of the efficiencies, which include everything from LED lighting with occupancy sensors to energy-efficient chillers, boilers, buildings and walls.

The building’s efficient design is expected to help the hospital see more than $108,000 in annual energy cost savings. The equipment, over its various lifecycles, will save 20,172,860 kilowatt hours of electricity and 359,720 therms of natural gas. That’s enough energy to power 1,736 homes for a full year.

More importantly, those efficiencies will help keep patients more comfortable.

“In our old building, it was hard to regulate temperatures in various rooms,” Stuart admitted. “In today’s environment… they can control the temperature in each and every room. So, if the room is not occupied, we can lower that temperature… We don’t have to heat a non-occupied room. If we have someone in that room, we can turn the temperature up and keep them comfortable. That has been a real plus.”

At the Wednesday check presentation, Stuart thanked the hospital’s account representative from Alliant Energy, Mary Eiler Radl, for calling him and letting Tomah Health know about Focus on Energy’s Design Assistance Program.

“She said, ‘Are you familiar with this program? Is it something that you would consider?’” Stuart recalled. “So, her reaching out to us about something that I had no idea existed is, I think, divine intervention.”

“Making energy efficiency part of construction from the first day, from the ground up… It’s a fabulous program. I’m happy to be able to offer it to our customers,” Radl said Wednesday.

And Stuart said he would happily encourage other CEOs to look into the benefits of Focus on Energy.

“It’s a win-win. You’d be foolish to not look into the Program.”