Healthcare
Figures suggest that its operations account for 5.4% of the UK’s total carbon emissions and 40% of all public sector emissions in the country.1 What’s more, the NHS estate is responsible for 36% of public sector power consumption.
It’s a similar story in the US. According to the World Health Organisation, health infrastructure is the second most-energy consuming sector in the United States2. In order to meet the needs of patients and comply with regulatory constraints in terms of performance guarantees, hospitals consume twice as much energy per square metre as other buildings.
At the same time, human health and well-being are inextricably linked to the health of the planet. Research suggests that up to one-third of new asthma cases might be avoided as a result of efforts to cut emissions, while another study says that the implementation of net zero policies would result in substantial reductions in mortality by 20503.
This means that healthcare systems need to adapt to this change and consider their environmental impact and the impact on populations’ health.
At the World Hospital Congress 2022, the International Hospital Federation (IHF) stated: “Hospitals and healthcare organisations hold a unique responsibility to provide safe quality care that protects and enhances the health potential of their communities. Climate change has a direct and increasingly damaging impact on both the health of communities and the delivery of healthcare”.
However, while it’s undeniably important for the healthcare industry as a whole to decarbonise and build climate resilience into their strategies, making this industry more environmentally friendly brings with it a unique set of challenges.
For example, while the NHS has committed to net-zero goals - 2040 for the emissions it controls and 2045 for those it can influence - it’s also facing an unprecedented financial challenge and a pandemic-fuelled staffing shortage. At the same time, healthcare facilities across the globe can’t risk any downtime or service disruption, as this could result in serious risks to patient safety.
Despite these risks, digital technologies are already systematically transforming the way healthcare is delivered in the 21st century. Electronic health records enable patients to proactively manage their health data, while telemedicine and digital diagnostics solutions enable patients to receive remote and fast diagnostics in a more convenient way.
Embracing digital technologies will also be key in ensuring the healthcare industry can become more sustainable, which means CIOs have a key role to play. The NHS’s “Delivering a Net Zero'' plan, for example, highlights the importance of digital interventions to reduce carbon, from digitally-enabled care solutions and the frontline digitisation of clinical records to streamlined operational workflow and communications aided by digital messaging.
“Consideration should also be given to how digitisation can be done in the most carbon efficient way possible, for example through carbon efficient cloud hosting, or data and information storage approaches that share access to the same files, rather than creating duplicate records,” the NHS’ plan reads.5
Here are some steps CIOs in the healthcare industry can take in order to help their organisation meet their net zero goals:
Managed print services.
Despite a recent shift towards electronic health records, the healthcare industry remains paper-intensive, which is often facilitated via legacy, expensive-to-run printers. By shifting to managed print services, the healthcare industry could not only streamline and reduce the cost of print, but it could also vastly reduce its carbon emissions. HP Managed Print
Service (MPS) creates adaptive workplace solutions to enable business transformation, while also helping customers advance their own sustainability goals.
Embrace digital healthcare solutions.
Digital technologies will be key to a sustainable healthcare system. Tools such as 3D printers and telehealth, both of which are offered by HP, help healthcare institutions to innovate in order to become more eco-friendly, be it by cutting down on paper face masks or by cutting down on in-person visits through the use of virtual appointments.
As a global company with approximately 94,000 employees, healthcare giant Merck strives to be efficient in every detail of its operations around the world while serving as a good corporate citizen. Yet even just a few years ago, most Merck employees had a personal printer on their desk and a monolithic, heavy-duty copier nearby. Print management is an area where the organisation knew it could make meaningful improvement, so Merck leveraged its relationship with HP to develop an overall HP Managed Print Service (MPS) solution. This has not only helped Merck to significantly reduce its device count by as much as 80%, but also to recycle 100% of its print cartridges, to reduce its print output by 30%, and to make significant cost savings across the entire organisation.4
1 https://insights.omnia-health.com/management/net-zero-how-uk-making-impact-sustainable-healthcare2 https://www.veolia.com/en/market/tertiary/environmental-challenges-healthcare-facilities3 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(22)00310-2/fulltext4 https://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/2011/InnovationforImpact/MERCK.pdf5 https://www.england.nhs.uk/ahp/greener-ahp-hub/specific-areas-for-consideration/digital-transformation-and-the-application-of-technology/
