Sustainability in Healthcare: A Simple Guide

Green joins Medical White for a Cleaner Future

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 about meeting today's society's wants and needs while ensuring that future generations can do the same. Most sustainability efforts target resources vital for survival, such as clean air and drinkable water, as well as nonrenewable resources like oil and gas.

Sustainability in the healthcare sector focuses on delivering medical care to patients while considering the environmental impact of this care. And the sector's influence can't be underestimated. Hospitals alone produce nearly 30 lbs of waste per bed per day. Almost 5 percent of the world's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions originate from healthcare activities, both 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 impact both today's populations and 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:

A reduced carbon footprint, such as GHG, 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, leading to reduced turnover and burnout, particularly among healthcare 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 familiar medical offices and hospitals, pharmaceutical and health insurance companies, medical computer manufacturers, as well as non-health sectors such as energy and waste disposal.

Given the sector's immense size and scope, achieving sustainability in healthcare presents some formidable challenges.

Limited Funds
Medical groups run under tight budgets. This is especially true for privatized healthcare systems or those groups whose funds have recently been cut. 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 environmental impact of their practices. An anesthesiologist, for example, is most likely to be unaware 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, such as the definition of what constitutes 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 must also address regulatory compliance (see above) as well as operational efficiency. A short-staffed hospital, 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, such as giving proper rest to 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 focused solely on taking those steps that 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, such as reusable hospital gowns, biodegradable medical supplies, and environmentally friendly instruments.
Work with suppliers that have strong environmental practices, such as computer manufacturers whose products are all ENERGY STAR compliant.
Utilize digital technologies, such as medical tablets, instead of paper to help 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 in healthcare ensures the needs of today's patients while preserving resources for future generations. Reducing carbon emissions by hospitals is one example. Steps can range from simple, such as switching to LED lighting, to complex, like installing solar panels on hospital rooftops.

Contact an expert at Cybernet if your healthcare organization is seeking medical computers to support its 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 we'll be happy to customize them to meet your exact needs.