By Tony Chen and Nick Jacobs

If you were to pitch Planetree to your boss, how would you explain it? Most folks I've talked to have heard of it, but get thrown off by it. For some reason, they think Planetree is to hospitals as granola, hempy hippies are to society. It's viewed as this soft, fluffy, touchy, feely thing. So, I asked Nick Jacobs (who's on the board at Planetree) how a hospital could "dip their little toe" in Planetree without spending $$. What are the low-cost, high impact Planetree ideas that anyone could put into place? Also, show me some hard DATA that it works.

1. The good news is that, other than the dues, there is NO cost to go Planetree. It is a PHILOSOPHY. Honestly, all we did was the training and some cosmetic fixes to get started. Actually, Planetree is more of a commitment to being open minded. Massage is NOT expensive. Music is NOT expensive. Volunteer music is NOT expensive, but you'll have to deal with all of the homophobic jocks . . . I've taken a lot of ribbing over the years about my touchy feely organization. The good news is that I love WOMEN way too much.

2. The Samueli Institute is studying all of the hospitals in the top 15 that made the list of the Best Patient Centered Care Hospitals in the U.S. from Modern Maturity Magazine. Planetree is most simply a philosophy of PATIENT CENTERED CARE. It's doing what's right for the patient and their families FIRST, LAST and ALWAYS.

3. We get flowers donated from funerals, and, secretly, turn them into arrangements that look beautiful and put them everywhere. We put live plants everywhere and have volunteers care for them. We even got a greenhouse DONATED for this purpose. We serve at least one choice of HEALTHY FOOD for our employees and NO TRANS FATS for our patients. We have therapy dogs, trained to go to patient rooms. Clowns, etc etc etc. Aroma Therapy. Baby massage. None of this is expensive when you can show that the infection rate is 1%, that the mortality rate drops, that readmissions drop, that the length of stay went from 4.3 to 3.4 days. All of those things CREATE money for the organization. We have prayer services, and drumming circles and labrynths. None of that has to be under the Planetree umbrella.

So, as you can see, implementing Planetree isn't about renovating your facility to include curvy flower beds. Nor is it about renovating patient rooms or turning lounges into family kitchens. It's making the hospital a place that isn't scary, but welcoming... a place that doesn't ignore our spirit, but nourishes it. It's a bunch of little things that can drop ALOS by 25% and infection rates by 90%.