WASHINGTON -- No question that it's a challenge to pay those medical bills, but did you ever stop to consider just how much paperwork is involved in health care what that costs us?

"It's not only what we're doing within our building, but it's also what's in our building that goes out into the landfills," said George Washington Medical Faculty Associates CEO Stephen Badger.

Here's an example: 34-year-old Feroz Arastu sees the doctors at GW MFA for his health care. He's an average patient, nothing complicated.

His doctors and their staff will use at least four to five pieces of paper each time he visits. That includes a separate sheet for patient notes, prescriptions, bills, insurance information and future appointments.

But at GW MFA, one of the District's largest medical practices, they're trying to get rid of all that paper. The group is one of the first in the region to go paperless. All records are now entered directly into a computer, eliminating all those stacks of files. As for their old records? Those are all scanned into the system, allowing doctors easy access.

"There are absolutely millions of pages that we have saved from the landfill as a result of the scanning product as well as our electronic health record," Badger said.

MFA estimates they see 1,500 patients a day. That means they're saving 7,500 pieces of paper each day, or 37,500 a week.

Dr. Ryan Bosch, an internist at MFA, helped to spearhead the practice's paperless system.

"We're showing them that there's a new way to practice medicine, and that's in a paperless environment," Bosch said.

The practice has also tossed traditional cleaning products that they say were caustic and could irritate already sick patients, and started Clean Green.

"Some of the traditional cleaning environments are very caustic," Bosch said. They can be left on surfaces and damage people's hair and skin and be an irritant frankly."

GW officals say cleaning crews now use smaller amounts of these new products, which are made with environmentally friendly substances. Cleaning rags are reusable, made with a micro-fiber that's specially made for different surfaces.

"We're saving the environment and helping people's health," Bosch said.

So how many trees are being saved with GW's program? It's hard to tell. One paper company estimates there's about 8,000 pieces of paper in the average tree, so the paperless program would be saving about four and a half trees each week.

More Information:

George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates’ Paperless Medical Record Program

Greening The Cleaning