Series 13: Environmental Sustainability in Healthcare

Our Improve­ment and Inno­va­tion Show­case brings togeth­er teams from across the health sys­tem to con­nect, share and explore their expe­ri­ences of work­ing towards bet­ter health­care for all South Australians. 

As per the Strate­gic Direc­tion (2024−2027), we recog­nised that reduc­ing the health system’s impact on cli­mate change and iden­ti­fy­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to adapt to its impact is crit­i­cal to a sus­tain­able health sys­tem. The Showcase’s 13^th Series aimed to sup­port this and was themed as ​‘Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­i­ty in Health­care’. We were excit­ed to col­lab­o­rate with the SA Health Cli­mate Change Exec­u­tive Gov­er­nance Group to deliv­er this series in antic­i­pa­tion of the launch of the SA Health Cli­mate Change Framework!

Improve­ment and Inno­va­tion Show­case 39: It’s Everyone’s Prob­lem! The Impact of Cli­mate Change in Healthcare

Dr Kim­ber­ly Humphrey (Pub­lic Health Med­ical Con­sul­tant and Cli­mate Change Lead, SA Depart­ment of Health and Wellbeing)

The chang­ing cli­mate is an exis­ten­tial threat and described by the UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al as a ​‘code red for human­i­ty’. Aus­tralia is one of the coun­tries on the front­lines of cli­mate-health impacts, includ­ing increas­ing in extreme weath­er events, changes in infec­tious dis­eases pat­terns, and food and water secu­ri­ty. These impacts will place unprece­dent­ed pres­sure on our health sys­tem and are exac­er­bat­ing exist­ing health inequities, with vul­ner­a­ble groups and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties most affect­ed. The health­care sec­tor alone is respon­si­ble for almost 5% of glob­al green­house gas emis­sions and if it were a coun­try, it would be the fifth largest pol­luter on Earth. Under a ​‘busi­ness as usu­al’ sce­nario, emis­sions from health­care could triple between now and 2050. 

Join Kim­ber­ly to hear why the respon­si­bil­i­ty to address the impact of cli­mate change in health­care rests not with just a few but every­one who works in it!

Improve­ment and Inno­va­tion Show­case 40: High Val­ue Health­care is Low Car­bon Healthcare

Dr Kate Charlesworth (Med­ical Direc­tor, Cli­mate Risk & Net Zero Unit, NSW Health) (MBBS(Hons), MPH, FAF­PHM, PhD)

As we face the unprece­dent­ed chal­lenge of cli­mate change, it is wide­ly acknowl­edged that a sub­stan­tial pro­por­tion of health care is waste­ful and low val­ue. Low val­ue care remains stub­born­ly com­mon and may be increas­ing, includ­ing in low- and mid­dle-income coun­tries. Recent esti­mates show that about 30% of health care is waste­ful or low val­ue, and a fur­ther 10% is harm­ful. How does low val­ue care inter­sect with cli­mate risk in rela­tion to its car­bon footprint?

Join Kate to hear how we all have a role to play in lead­ing sus­tain­able mod­els of clin­i­cal care and explore why bet­ter val­ue, low car­bon emis­sions mod­els of clin­i­cal care are urgent­ly needed.

Improve­ment and Inno­va­tion Show­case 41: Waste Reduc­tion in Healthcare

Sarah Rip­ley (Sus­tain­able Health­care Man­ag­er Cli­mate and Health Alliance)

Chris Bar­ber (Man­ag­er, Cor­po­rate Oper­a­tions, Women’s and Children’s Hospital)

Kirs­tine Warne­ford (Equip­ment Advanced Nurse Man­ag­er, Women’s and Children’s Hospital)

Decar­bon­is­ing the Aus­tralian health sys­tem health­care sec­tor is a col­lec­tive effort and encom­pass­es a range of areas. The health sys­tem gen­er­ates mul­ti­ple waste streams. The emis­sions foot­print of this waste depends on the type of waste and the method of dis­pos­al, which can include recy­cling, com­post, land­fill and incineration.

Join Sarah from the Cli­mate and Health Alliance along­side Chris and Kirs­tine from the Women’s and Children’s Health Net­work (WCHN) to hear about the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of hos­pi­tal waste and exam­ples of local decar­bon­i­sa­tion ini­tia­tives in our hospitals.

Improve­ment and Inno­va­tion Show­case 42: Sus­tain­able Design in Healthcare

Jack Noo­nan (Port­fo­lio Man­ag­er, New Women’s and Children’s Hos­pi­tal Project)

The built envi­ron­ment con­sists of all the human-made aspects of people’s sur­round­ings, includ­ing hos­pi­tals, facil­i­ties, roads and oth­er con­nect­ing tran­sit sys­tems. Build­ings con­tribute to cli­mate change through their con­struc­tion, main­te­nance and dai­ly oper­a­tion. This includes the mate­ri­als they use; their loca­tion; and elec­tric­i­ty, gas and water usage. It is esti­mat­ed that cap­i­tal expen­di­ture for health care build­ings alone, includ­ing expen­di­ture on the build­ing of new hos­pi­tals and retro­fitting or upgrad­ing of estab­lished hos­pi­tals, rep­re­sents 8% of total Aus­tralia health care emis­sions. How­ev­er, this fig­ure only con­sid­ers emis­sions from phys­i­cal con­struc­tion and upgrades and not build­ing ener­gy use.

Join Jack to learn about health facil­i­ty life­cy­cle emis­sions and envi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able design prin­ci­ples from both a new build (i.e. SA’s new Women’s & Children’s Hos­pi­tal) and exist­ing facil­i­ty perspective.