Centinela Hospital Medical Center, part of Ontario, CA-based Prime Healthcare system, is enjoying rapid ROI on water conservation measures implemented by Water Saver Solutions (WSS)—and other Prime Healthcare hospitals should soon see substantial savings, too.

In April 2017, retained WSS to survey water usage at its 11 local hospitals.The surveys are part of a unique partnership between WSS and Southern California Gas. The utility contracts with WSS to audit Level 1 and Level 2 hospitals in its service area and recommend ways hospitals can reduce their use of water and natural gas. WSS provides the audits for free, then works with hospitals to find and maximize available rebates and incentives to reduce the costs of the proposed changes.

WSS’s audit estimated that Centinela Hospital Medical Center could save 7.7 million gallons of water annually by putting its recommendations into action. In September 2017, WSS retrofitted faucets at Centinela Hospital Medical Center with flow-optimizing laminars, installed anti-microbial showerheads, and retrofitted five medical sterilizers with water-saving kits.

Internal measurement verification conducted by WSS found that these changes surpassed the savings goal and cut the hospital’s water costs by an average of 39% on two of its three water meters between 2016 and 2018.

Thanks to the success of the Centinela Hospital Medical Center project, Prime Healthcare has retained WSS to carry out its water conservation recommendations at other California hospitals. WSS began work on Huntington Beach Hospital and Garden Grove Hospital in December 2018.

The partnership with Southern California Gas has been so successful that the utility recently extended WSS’s contract through December 2019.