Gloves, or no gloves? Gloves, or no gloves?
This is the refrain that goes through my head during multiple patient encounters in a day. As an infectious disease specialist in a level one Trauma Center, I don gloves frequently while rounding to do dressing changes and examine wounds. But each time I open the trash to throw away another pair of gloves, which I usually wear for less than 5 minutes, I feel a pang of guilt at my addition to the healthcare waste problem. And it’s a big problem: U.S. hospitals produce over 5.9 million tons of waste each year. We also contribute disproportionately to climate change – despite the U.S. being only 4% of the world’s population, we create close to 25% of the world’s carbon emissions. And while my pairs of gloves are a miniscule part of the problem, my role as an infection prevention and control (IP&C) specialist and the ubiquity of single-use disposable supplies within IP&C cause me to frequently confront the behemoth of healthcare waste.
I joined CHN partially to mitigate these feelings of guilt, and to try to be an active part of the healthcare sustainability solution. Healthcare sustainability is a young, but quickly growing field. It aims to quantify the unintended environmental consequences of healthcare and evaluate care strategies that maintain patient safety while protecting public and planetary health. The vast majority (over 70%) of healthcare’s greenhouse gas emissions arise from the supply chain, meaning that the environmental consequences of healthcare are inextricable from our daily practice. Therefore, as healthcare workers we have a unique opportunity to advocate for sustainable practices in our workplaces, as the critical end-users and stakeholders in how healthcare is delivered.
The number of people who consider themselves environmentalists has dropped precipitously in recent decades: from a peak of 78% in 1991 to around 40% now. The good news is that interest in, funding for, and awareness of sustainability in healthcare has increased in recent years. We are still a long way away from critical milestones that we need to reach in order to truly deliver healthcare that “does no harm” from the environmental perspective. We need to actively transition to a circular economy, advocate for evidence-based sustainable and patient-centered practices (especially in IP&C), and consider sustainability as a metric in healthcare delivery the same way we do cost and patient outcomes. As we enter another year of the climate crisis, I urge you to consider exploring healthcare sustainability as a way you can make a change.'
~Pam Lee, CHN Healthcare Sustainability Resource Team Co-Chair | 
