The goal of healthcare is to treat patients for their illnesses and injuries. Yet there are consequences to this noble endeavor. Hospitals, for instance, are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Many medical groups are turning to sustainability practices to reduce their environmental impact now and in the future.
- What Does Sustainability in Healthcare Mean?
- Key Benefits of Embracing Sustainable Healthcare
- Challenges to Achieving Sustainability in Healthcare
- Practical Steps for a Greener Healthcare System
What Does Sustainability in Healthcare Mean?
Simply, "sustainability" is meeting today's society's wants and needs, while making sure future generations can do the same. Most sustainability efforts target resources vital for survival, like clean air and drinkable water, and nonrenewables like oil and gas.
Sustainability in the healthcare sector focuses on delivering medical care to patients while considering the delivery's impact on the environment. And the sector's impact can't be underestimated. Hospitals alone produce nearly 30 lbs of waste per bed per day. And nearly five percent of the world's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from healthcare activities directly and indirectly.
Most sustainability efforts in healthcare can be broken down into three key areas:
- Environmental sustainability, which is concerned with reducing GHG, managing limited resources like water, and obtaining environmentally-friendly products like green computers.
- Social sustainability, which focuses on the people within the sector, involves everything from ensuring patients have fair access to medical services to preventing burnout of healthcare professionals.
- Economic sustainability, which aims to keep healthcare systems running properly both in the short- and long-term.
Key Benefits of Embracing Sustainable Healthcare
Because sustainability aims to affect today's populations as well as future generations, some benefits can become apparent quickly in metrics such as cost savings. Others, like the reduction of GHG, take longer and are part of national and international goals.
For healthcare, some of the benefits of sustainability include:
- Reduced carbon footprint, like GHG, which in turn leads to cleaner air and a healthier planet.
- Financial savings from lowered energy and waste bills.
- Reduction of wastes, either from proper disposal of hazardous materials like surgical materials, or the more efficient use of limited resources like petroleum products.
- Improved public health, such as the reduction of asthma from air pollution or communicable diseases through proper vaccination.
- Increased employee morale, resulting in less turnover and burnout, especially among providers.
- Enhanced reputation among patients, who’ll look more favorably at groups similarly aligned on sustainability.
Challenges to Achieving Sustainability in Healthcare
The healthcare sector is massive: the US healthcare system alone spends nearly $5 trillion a year and employs over 17 million people. Businesses involved include the familiar medical offices and hospitals, pharmaceutical and health insurance, medical computer manufacturers, as well as non-health sectors like energy and waste disposal.
Given the sector's sheer size and scope, bringing sustainability to healthcare faces some formidable hurdles.
Limited Funds
Medical groups run under tight budgets. This is especially true with privatized healthcare systems or funds recently cut by their governments. Hospitals may not be able to justify, or even pay, the higher upfront costs of a more energy-efficient HVAC system, even if it'll bring energy costs down in the long run.
Lack of Awareness
Unsurprisingly, medical staff prioritize patients' health first and are often unaware of the impact of their practice on the environment. An anesthesiologist, for example, most likely will not know that some of the gases used to anesthetize patients also increase GHG.
Complex Regulations
The healthcare sector is highly regulated, from government mandates to industrial standards like the definition of what truly is medical-grade. And penalties can be stiff. Medical groups may feel there's too great a chance of violating one or more regulations when enacting sustainability polices.
Conflicting Priorities
Along with patient care, medical groups have to deal with regulatory compliance (see above) as well as operational efficiency. A hospital that is short-staffed, for example, may feel it's failing all three by not providing adequate 24/7 patient coverage, violating minimal staffing requirements, and disrupting hospital operations to meet such requirements. Sustainability efforts like giving adequate rest for workers will quickly fall to the wayside.
Staff Resistance
The final challenge is the medical staff themselves. They may not have been adequately prepped about the new sustainability policies and their benefits (especially in the long term). "Preparation" can range from opinions about the policies to training on new machinery and devices. Failure in one or more of these areas can leave staff members confused, hurt, and even hostile, and jeopardize sustainability efforts.
Practical Steps for a Greener Healthcare System
The sheer size and scope of sustainability can look overwhelming. And if you were taking the view, "you're saving the planet for the future of humanity!", you'd be right.
Instead, a better view is the adage, "the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Here, you're just focused on taking those steps as they lead towards sustainability. For sustainability in healthcare, they can be:
- Lower the energy use of hospitals by installing energy-efficient HVAC systems and power-controlling smart rooms.
- Save water by installing water-conserving plumbing and recycling systems.
- Purchase eco-friendly products like reusable hospital gowns, and biodegradable medical supplies and instruments.
- Work with suppliers with strong environmental practices, like computer manufacturers whose products are all ENERGY STAR compliant.
- Use digital technologies like medical tablets instead of paper and preserve the world’s remaining forests.
- Lower GHG and other emissions by connecting patients with providers via telemedicine instead of driving in fossil-burning vehicles to meet in person.
- Educate staff across all levels of the medical group on the benefits of sustainability practices.
Meet Green Goals With Cybernet Computers
Sustainability ensures today's society and future generations continue to meet their wants and needs, whether it's clean water or land to grow food. For sustainability in healthcare, steps can be as simple as switching to LED lighting or as complex as installing solar panels on hospital rooftops.
Contact an expert at Cybernet if your healthcare organization is looking for medical computers to support your sustainability efforts. We have years of experience in the sector, and offer a range of products including mini box PCs, all-in-ones, tablets, and even AI computers. Each has been built from the ground up to handle both the challenges of healthcare and sustainability.
Can't find what you're looking for among our pre-builts? Not a problem! We're an original equipment manufacturer, and will happily customize them to meet your exact wants and needs.