Environmentally sustainable surgical systems

Abstract

Surgeons, anaesthetists, wider surgical teams and hospital managers are a large global group that has the capacity and power to play a leadership role to contribute to change. Hospitals are a good target for improvement since they are centres of communities, linking together surrounding healthcare facilities and influencing wider determinants of the environment. District and rural hospitals are good sites to start since they serve large populations, have the least sustained energy and clean water supplies and will benefit most from quality improvement. Within hospitals, surgeons and surgical pathways are the ideal places to start decarbonising healthcare. Surgery is a high-resource activity, but it focuses on one patient at a time, allowing measures to be introduced, and their effects closely monitored. Through a mass movement, surgical teams should be able to influence policy-makers for healthcare and industry supply chains, amplifying their effect. This article describes how we can make personal, professional and organisational changes to start creating impact. Change can be hard, especially in healthcare, so this new community needs to blend carbon literacy and behavioural change techniques for success. The article is focused on the front-line team and written by clinician experts in behavioural change and sustainable practice. As such, it will not tackle the technicalities of sustainability and carbon accounting. It intends to challenge individual readers to start making changes now, and to challenge systems leaders to start making larger-scale changes urgently.

Keywords: Global Health; Surgery.

Figure 1. Environmental hotspots in the surgical patient’s whole pathway.

Figure 2. Key domains and vanguard projects for to achieve environmentally sustainable surgical systems mapped to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and scopes of carbon emissions.

Figure 3. DRAGON trial infographic. LMICs: Low- and middle- income countries.