Today in health, it we're going to talk about sustainability. We're going to talk about AIS water footprint. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator this week health. Set of channels and events dedicated to transform healthcare. One connection at a time. Did they show is brought to you by artists site one platform, infinite possibilities of improving healthcare. Our decides platform unlocks endless ways to relieve tension. Reduce friction and make clinicians jobs easier from telemedicine to virtual nursing and beyond Explorer.

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You said it's a foundation for daily or weekly discussions. On the topics that are relevant to you in the industry, they can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Great way to mentor somebody. Today's conversation is about sustainability. I'm finding this conversation is coming up. Specifically in the academic medical centers, somewhat in large IDs. But it is starting to permeate our head space or mind space at this point. And this was an interesting article that was shared with me yesterday.

And I thought I would put it out here for you to consider this is not necessarily top of mind stuff right now, but it is something that I believe is percolating. And it will be top of mind within a year or two for, I think. Most health systems. How systems with data centers, health systems with a significant compute environments?

I think. Are going to be if not, full-blown initiatives around this at least in making progress towards this. So let me give you this one aspect of it. Obviously we know about a carbon footprint. And that's how much CO2 is being generated from the use of technology and other things within the hospital. But the data center and the compute is a significant. Source of ongoing CO2 emissions. This one's about water.

How much water does AI consume? And this is from OEC. D and OACD, hold on. Let me get that for you. O E C d.ai policy observation. Is what it is. This is written. By a gentleman. Who's an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university of California. Riverside.

It was actually written late last year in November of 23, but again, it was shared with me yesterday. So that's why I'm sharing with you today. And we'll talk a little bit about what this means, what the paradox is and how I would be approaching it. If I were a CIO today. The increasing discussion around artificial intelligence.

And this is a summary. On our website around artificial intelligence, often overlooked it's significant water consumption. Essential. For onsite server cooling and electricity generation. This also includes cloud by the way. It's so even though it said onsite I just want to note that your cloud consumption is part of your overall footprint. So essential for onsite server cooling and electricity. Generation four data centers, large AI models like GPT three. Three. Require vast amounts of energy leading to notable water consumption. AIS operational water footprint, comprising scope one onsite and scope to off-site water usage. Onsite would be the stuff that you need to actually run the things that are that are functioning within your data center offsite would be things like your power plants and that kind of stuff who use water to generate the electricity. That you will utilize along with scope three, embodied water consumption, poses, a challenge.

Given the global water scarcity. I don't know what the global water scarcity is, to be honest with you. I think that is regional in nature. We do not have a global water scarcity here in Florida. In fact, we have a lot of water right now. However, if I were say in Phoenix, Arizona I would the global water scarcity. At least regionally would be acute. Living in a desert, same thing with Southern California, even though they've had a lot of rain recently. It comes and goes and you can go. Six seven years without a lot of water.

I'll have to research a little bit. What global water scarcity is about. I go on a transparency regarding AI's water footprint is lacking compared to its carbon footprint. So we just don't have enough information on this is what they're saying. And it's an important part piece of the overall footprint complicating efforts to address water sustainability. Monitoring and publicizing AI's water usage can drive better resource management and equitable solutions to mitigate its environmental impact. So I bring this up, not necessarily to talk about the water footprint because clearly a lot of work is going to be going into this. And a lot of research and what it actually takes to develop a metric for tracking this. This this aspect of the footprint of our AI or our data centers just in general. But I bring this up to talk about sustainability.

I talked to two. this week. And both of them talked about sustainability. We had a 2 29 project meeting where there was a sizeable conversation around sustainability and which metrics we should be utilizing and how we should be approaching it. And should we be standing this up as part of governance? And whatnot.

And I find that in areas like this because of funding and because of focus that the academic medical centers will lead the way in this discussion, the question is. What does this mean for everybody? What does this mean for the industry? And you have organizations like Providence, who. As stated a zero carbon footprint. Initiative. And you have others that have a stated sustainability metric. And, I wonder what we're going.

How are we going to look at this? How are we going to measure this? And how serious are we about this? Will it change our behaviors? If we find out. That that let's say one technology is. Let's make it more practical. Let's say we find out that WebEx takes more carbon and water. Has a larger carbon and water footprint than zoom. Or teams has a larger that's probably more applicable.

So teams has a larger water and carbon footprint than zoom. Are we going to switch technologies? And at what level do we actually look at these things and make decisions based on this. Where does it factor into our governance? We going only to look at. Obviously fit for use. You use fit for applications and then look at security fit.

And then we also going to look at at a sustainability fit. I, again, I think this is early on in the conversation. We can argue whether it should be early on or not early on, I guess it depends on your political bent, but regardless is the world we live in. And we are trying to create healthy communities and part of a healthy community is making sure that we don't strip the resources that are required for our communities.

Obviously, if you're in Arizona, you don't want to be using water for things like compute when you could be using it for things like, I don't know, drinking. It could almost be that acute in that situation and that whole Colorado river basin. Obviously. These are important topics. And so I think this conversation will be coming to a CIO. A discussion near you.

I would if I were a CIO today, I would be ready to discuss this at a. At a decent level of depth. Not significant depth people aren't requiring me at this point. To have this discussion and know you. Statistics and facts and that kind of stuff, but they do want me to be aware of it. And I would be w I'd be ready to have a conversation about this at an awareness level.

Yes, we are aware of this. Yes, we are coming up with metrics around this. Yes. Our team. Eh, within it, we have a team that's looking at this and exploring this topic. That's probably where I would be. Eh, it may not be a primary focus of the team, but I would take. People from our applications, team, people from our infrastructure and operations team. I would form a group and say, look. I want you to meet on a monthly basis. And I want you to explore this topic. And as a group, explore, find people that this is their passion, right? And let them explore it.

Let them. Explore what other health systems are doing? Let them explore what the metrics are around this. That organizations are looking for. If you find a health system, that's really making progress on this. I don't know. Maybe you set up a joint meeting between the two. And find out, you know what's working, what's not working. Again, I would just get in front of it. I would. When somebody brings this up in an executive meeting, I would like to be able to say, yes, we've been looking at this.

Here's the work we've been doing. If we want to expand this to the entire system. We would welcome that opportunity to have that discussion. So those are my thoughts on this. Sustainability, I think is more and more going to be a discussion. That that permeates the it organization and the healthcare organization at large.

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