Healthcare ’s Sustainability Problem And The Solutions Tech Can Provide

The following is a guest article by Melissa Powell, COO at Genesis HealthCare. Healthcare’s future is smart and sustainable, led by tech-driven solutions and human ingenuity. One great success story of sustainable healthcare that combines those forces begins with a nurse who sews. Tami Ochs, an RN at New Jersey’s Overlook Medical Center, helped the facility repurpose 15,000 pounds of surgical blue wrap that was being discarded annually. She began sewing shopping bags from the non-biodegradable material used to cover sterile equipment, a project that blossomed into a goal to replace 100,000 plastic bags patients use every year. Further, Overlook is finding ways to repurpose blue wrap into ponchos and sleeping bags for people without housing. Overlook provides a low-tech example of a popular tech term known as “circular healthcare,” one method we’ll use to build more sustainable healthcare systems. We’re uncovering more ways that tech will transform healthcare by improving patient outcomes, lowering costs, and reducing the amount of carbon the industry emits. Healthcare is responsible for about 4.4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and emissions in U.S. healthcare rose 6 percent from 2010-18. Healthcare facilities use nearly 10 percent of U.S. energy in commercial buildings and are responsible for 8.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists consider anesthesia to be a “carbon hotspot.” But we can reduce these emissions while providing better ca...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: AI/Machine Learning C-Suite Leadership Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System AMA Boston Medical Center Circular Healthcare Cisco Genesis Healthcare Healthcare Facilities Healthcare Without Harm Melissa Powell Overlook Medical Cent Source Type: blogs