Baxter’s Sustainability Efforts Support Education, Sustainable Product Design; Earn Dow Jones Sustainability Index Recognition
Baxter International Inc.’s (NYSE: BAX) Science@Work
education initiative achieved a milestone with the opening of Instituto
Health Sciences Career Academy (IHSCA), a new Chicago high school
dedicated to preparing students for healthcare careers. The school will
focus on providing Latinos with education and preparation to pursue
careers that meet the nation’s healthcare needs. Baxter also continued
its commitment to sustainable
product design with the introduction of a new dialyzer, and was
named 2010 Medical Products Industry Leader of the Dow Jones
Sustainability Index for the ninth year.
Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy Provides Latinos with
Healthcare Education
Baxter is collaborating with several partners including Instituto del
Progreso Latino, the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council and the
Renaissance Schools Fund to launch the Instituto Health Sciences Career
Academy (IHSCA) – the city’s first charter health science career academy
– to address the shortage of Latinos in the healthcare field and to
support Chicago’s efforts to provide high-quality education options.
Located on the city’s southwest side, the school welcomed its first
class of ninth graders on September 7 and will serve 600 students when
fully enrolled.
IHSCA is unique in that it fully integrates the health sciences into all
core subjects to create the next generation of doctors, nurses,
scientists, technicians and healthcare professionals; provides students
with a rigorous college prep curriculum for success in competitive
colleges and universities; and offers the opportunity for students to
earn professional certification for high-wage entry-level positions in
the healthcare field, such as pharmacy technicians and physician
assistants.
“The Academy’s rigorous health science program will help ensure that
future generations are prepared to pursue rewarding careers that meet
the nation’s increasing healthcare needs,” said Robert L. Parkinson,
Jr., Baxter’s chairman and chief executive officer. “As a science- and
technology-based healthcare company, Baxter has a responsibility to
ensure that current and future students have every opportunity to learn
and be inspired by math and science.”
Latinos are the largest and fastest-growing minority population in the
United States, expected to triple by the year 2050 to constitute more
than a quarter of the total U.S. population, according to projections
from the Pew Research Center. However, Latinos are underrepresented in
healthcare careers, with 3 percent of nurses, 3.4 percent of
pharmacists, 3.8 percent of physicians and 5.3 percent of physician
assistants of Latino descent, according to the 2000 U.S. Census and the
Health Resources & Services Administration.
“So many of our children grow up hoping one day to become a doctor, or a
nurse, or a veterinarian,” said Juan Salgado, president and chief
executive officer, Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy. “Through
Baxter’s support, we can connect our students’ passion for math and
science into well-paying careers in medicine, nursing, informatics and
biotechnology.”
The July 2009 report “Preparing the Workers of Today for the Jobs of
Tomorrow,” from the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, predicts
that “expansion of health coverage could lead to increased demand for
workers,” as a result of healthcare reform. Between 2000 and 2016, the
report projects that healthcare practitioner occupations will grow 35
percent and healthcare support jobs will grow 48 percent.
With start-up funding and hands-on support provided by several partners
including Baxter, the Renaissance Schools Fund and the Metropolitan
Chicago Healthcare Council, the Instituto Health Science Career Academy
will place a heavy emphasis on math and science and offer job shadowing
and internship programs in an effort to prepare students for success.
In 2008, Baxter launched Science@Work: Expanding Minds with Real-World
Science, a multi-year partnership with the Chicago Public Schools to
support teacher training and student development in healthcare and
biotechnology. Science@Work provided an initial investment to IHSCA to
help open and sustain the school, and the company plans to supplement
this investment with Baxter-sponsored lab tours, lectures and career
days for IHSCA students.
Baxter’s Sustainability Efforts Recognized by Dow Jones
Sustainability Index
Baxter has been named 2010 Medical Products Industry Leader of the Dow
Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World) and the Dow Jones
Sustainability North America Index (DJSI North America). This marks the
12th consecutive year that the company has been listed in the DJSI and
the ninth year the company has been named Medical Products Industry
Leader since the launch of the DJSI in 1999.
Baxter’s leadership position resulted from top scores across a number of
performance areas including bioethics, code of conduct, talent
attraction and retention, and social and environmental reporting.
The Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, derived from the Dow Jones Global
Index, are the world’s first benchmarks tracking the financial
performance of leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide. The
DJSI World Index tracks the financial performance of the top 10 percent
in each of 57 sectors out of the 2,500 largest companies in the Dow
Jones Global Index in terms of social, economic and environmental
performance. The DJSI North America Index includes the top 20 percent of
the 600 largest North American companies in the Dow Jones Global Index.
Sustainable Design of New Dialyzer Offers Environmental Benefits
Baxter’s new XENIUM+ synthetic dialyzer offers increased environmental
benefits when compared to the company’s XENIUM family of dialyzers,
including decreased carbon emissions, natural resource use and biohazard
waste. Dialyzers are filters that clean the blood of dialysis patients
whose kidneys can no longer perform that life-sustaining function.
XENIUM+ is 15 percent lighter than previously developed Baxter
dialyzers, resulting in the potential for reduced fuel consumption in
shipping and biohazard waste removal. Each case of XENIUM+ dialyzers
uses approximately one-third less cardboard in its packaging, reducing
natural resource use and waste removal requirements. The carbon
footprint is lower during the life cycle of this product when compared
to previous generations, due in part to its polypropylene rather than
polycarbonate casing. Also, all materials used in XENIUM+ are free of
bisphenol-A.
Currently XENIUM+ is commercially available in Italy, France and Sweden.
Additional country launches are planned in 2011 and 2012, depending on
market needs and timing of regulatory approvals.
Baxter continually works to address environmental and social issues
across the life cycle of its products, ranging from sustainable design
and bioethics during research and development, to efficient use of
energy and materials during manufacturing and transport, and finally,
responsible repair, refurbishment and recycling at product end-of-life.
About Baxter
For further details regarding the initiatives described above, including
photographs and graphics, please see the Smart Marketing Page at the
following link: http://www.businesswire.com/smp/baxter-prepares-latino-students-for-health-careers.
Baxter’s commitment to sustainability spans three decades. The company
is included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and has been
recognized by Corporate Knights as one of the Global 100 Most
Sustainable Corporations in the World and by Corporate Responsibility
magazine as one of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens. Baxter was also
ranked first in the healthcare category of Newsweek’s inaugural
Green Rankings in 2009. Baxter is a member of the Center for Corporate
Citizenship at Boston College, the Business Environmental Leadership
Council of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the Chicago Climate
Exchange, the U.S. EPA’s Climate Leaders, and the Ethics & Compliance
Officer Association. Baxter endorses the Ceres principles and is an
organizational stakeholder of the Global Reporting Initiative. See
Baxter’s sustainability
report for more information.
Baxter International Inc., through its subsidiaries, develops,
manufactures and markets products that save and sustain the lives of
people with hemophilia, immune disorders, infectious diseases, kidney
disease, trauma, and other chronic and acute medical conditions. As a
global, diversified healthcare company, Baxter applies a unique
combination of expertise in medical devices, pharmaceuticals and
biotechnology to create products that advance patient care worldwide.
