The health care industry is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing industries.[1] Consuming over 10 percent of gross domestic product of most developed nations, health care can form an enormous part of a country's economy.[2] In 2003, health care costs paid to hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, diagnostic laboratories, pharmacies, medical device manufacturers and other components of the health care system, consumed 15.3 percent [3] of the GDP of the United States, the largest of any country in the world. In 2001, for the OECD countries the average was 8.4 percent [4] with the United States (13.9%), Switzerland (10.9%), and Germany (10.7%) being the top three.

Health Care Without Harm is working with hospitals to adopt food procurement policies that:

• provide nutritionally improved food for patients, staff, visitors, and the general public, and
• create food systems which are ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible.

By adopting food procurement policies that are ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible, health care systems demonstrate an understanding of the inextricable links between human, public, and ecosystem health.