A Sustainable Partnership for Health Equity and Environmental Action: MedCycle Network and CommonSpirit Health
Every day, across California, clinics face shortages of the very supplies that keep their doors open and their community members without health insurance. At the same time, hospitals generate surplus of unused supplies and functioning biomedical equipment. What if there was a systematic solution to connect resources to needs?
This is the vision at the heart of the innovative partnership between CommonSpirit Health and MedCycle Network. Together, we’re reimagining what’s possible for community health, climate action, and healthcare equity.
A Mission-Aligned Partnership
MedCycle Network and CommonSpirit Health have joined forces to ensure that medical surplus finds a new home where it could be saving or improving a life. As the nation’s largest non-profit health system, CommonSpirit Health’s commitment to environmental stewardship and health equity echoes through every corner of their work.
MedCycle Network is actively collecting medical surplus from three CommonSpirit Health hospitals. Coordinated by our COO and co-founder Ernesto Olivares, below are photos of him with program leaders at each of the below locations.
Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento, Satoya Phung (left) and Fatima Nunez (right), have donated drapes, gloves, gowns, and catheters.
Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, Dwayne White, has donated gowns, suction tubing, drapes, and orthopedic surgical packs.
Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, Alfredo Torio, has donated fetal pillows, gowns and catheters.
These supplies are catalogued, tracked, and then made available online to be requested by local safety net clinics and delivered directly to their doors, free of charge. Every delivery supports frontline caregivers, protects our environment, and strengthens the health safety net for our neighbors who are underinsured, or who don’t have health insurance.
Impact by Design: Local Solutions with Lasting Results
Why does this partnership matter? Because every box tells a story.
A box of gloves enables a nurse to provide safe care in a neighborhood clinic. A cart of wound care supplies helps a doctor serve unhoused neighbors with dignity. A walker finds new life supporting a patient’s recovery.
By matching surplus to need, we ensure that resources remain local, budgets stretch further, and fewer items unnecessarily end up in nearby landfills. Through technology and intentional coordination, clinics like Clinica Tepati, order only what they need, saving them time and money, so they can focus on providing care.
This is more than logistics, it’s a climate action plan in motion. CommonSpirit Health is a national leader in environmental responsibility, pledging to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 and cut operational emissions in half by 2030. Together, we’re putting those values into practice: reducing healthcare’s carbon footprint while expanding access for those most in need.
Sister Mary Ellen Leciejewski: Leading by Example
This work is made possible because of the visionary leadership of people like Sister Mary Ellen Leciejewski, System Vice President for Environmental Sustainability at CommonSpirit Health. She has devoted her life to integrating ecological responsibility into the very fabric of healthcare. As she has often shared, “If our planet’s not healthy, we’re not healthy.”
Sister Mary Ellen’s team leads bold sustainability initiatives across 139 hospitals, and her partnership has been essential in launching this new approach to medical surplus recovery. Her story reminds us that environmental stewardship is not only good policy, it’s a moral imperative, rooted in kindness, justice, and our shared humanity.
“At CommonSpirit Health, environmental stewardship isn't a department, it's woven into our healing mission. When we redirect medical surplus to clinics serving our uninsured neighbors through our partnership with MedCycle Network, we're putting our values into action.” Sister Mary Ellen Leciejewski, System Vice President for Environmental Sustainability, CommonSpirit Health
Building Toward a Broader Vision
The CommonSpirit Health and MedCycle Network partnership is just the beginning. As we grow, we’re designing a model that can scale, one that prioritizes transparency, accountability, and real-world impact. Every clinic that receives supplies is empowered to serve more patients, train more future clinicians, and stretch every dollar further.
Join Us
You can be part of this story.
If you’re a hospital or clinic, join our network and help us build a more sustainable, equitable future.
If you’re a donor or community member, support our mission and help keep this life-saving cycle in motion.
Together, we are building a healthier, more caring future, one delivery, one clinic, one community at a time, until every piece of surplus finds its way home, to the neighbors who need it most.