A financial initiative tailored to help hospitals cut their energy costs is showing results in Missoula.

Adam Gill, Executive Director of the Montana Facility Finance Authority, attached to the Montana Department of Commerce, provided details about the energy saving project at Missoula’s Providence St. Patrick Hospital.

“We work with nonprofit health providers to provide them with access to low cost capital and planning services,” said Gill. “We help them with the bricks and sticks and equipment they need to help their facilities meet the needs of their communities. We do it in such a way that they can save money and pass those savings on to their communities.”

Gill said many rural health care facilities are saving thousands of dollars in energy costs thanks to their program.

“We’re seeing some great savings,” he said. “For small facilities we’re seeing savings of between $25,000 and $30,000 a year. We sent an engineer up to St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula and they were just working on the air handling piece, that’s how they move air around the facility and that identified well over $100,000 in savings once it was implemented.”

Gill said those savings are just the beginning at Providence St. Patrick Hospital.

“That’s not even everything that’s been recommended, and they’ve already seen savings of over $100,000,” he said. That’s what the grants were meant to do to help them save money, and because they’re nonprofits they can pass those savings back to their communities in the form of lower fees.”

Eligible applicants for the grant program include nonprofit organizations such as hospitals, senior living facilities, group homes, prerelease facilities and clinics.

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