Hospitals in Canada and the UK are testing whether switching from disposable medical devices to reusable ones can cut carbon emissions without compromising patient safety. Healthcare generates 4.6% of Canada’s national carbon emissions, much of it from single-use devices that are convenient but environmentally costly. The problem is that moving to reusable alternatives is tangled up in conflicting interests across the medical supply chain—hospital managers, government regulators, academics, and manufacturers all have different reasons to stick with disposables, including perceived infection risks, higher upfront costs, and a lack of decontamination infrastructure. This research aims to produce a data-driven policy brief and procurement scorecard that weigh both monetary and carbon costs across a product’s full life cycle. If successful, it could give hospital systems a standardised way to prioritise reusable devices for high-impact items like surgical instruments, quietly reshaping supply chains and procurement decisions that most people never see. The work builds on the UK’s Design for Life Roadmap and NHS policy, and will collaborate with UK partners to scale initiatives like Ontario’s “Cut the Carbon” campaign and operating room scorecards already in use.
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to principles of reduction, reuse, repair and remanufacturing in health systems will be essential in the fight against climate change. Healthcare institutions, which are highly trusted, can play a leading role. Furthermore, healthcare is a significant contributor to environmental degradation, generating substantial waste and carbon emissions. In Canada, the healthcare system is responsible for 4.6% of national carbon emissions. A large portion of this waste comes from disposable medical devices, which are convenient but environmentally harmful. This proposal seeks to help in the transition of integrating environmentally sustainable practices through the "reuse" of medical devices into Canadian and UK hospital systems. It will be achieved by giving insight into standardized processes for evaluating sustainable procurement models. Switching to reuseable devices where clinically safe to do so, is challenging because of the complexity in inter-dependencies of all the sectors involved in the medical supply chain. These differences are further amplified across jurisdictions. Our UK partners have made headway in this field of study. The UK's Design for Life Roadmap and the NHS Policy Brief on reducing the environmental impact of medical devices, provide critical frameworks to guide this transition. Successful adoption requires a centralized strategy for medical device circularity, support for scaling reuse processes, and engagement with procurement stakeholders. Hospital managers, government, academics and industry are all involved in the supply chain of medical device purchasing. There are lines of reasoning that currently support the single-use consumption approach. Perceived risk of infection, perceived increased costs, lack of infrastructure to support decontamination processes and a lack of legislation and policy, are examples. Evidence-informed policy is what drives larger scale change. This proposal will collaborate with our UK counterparts to scale planetary health initiatives, creating an evidence-based policy that promotes reusable medical devices in procurement processes. This includes developing cost-effectiveness models that consider both monetary and carbon costs and creating a procurement scorecard based on a product's life-cycle (the total carbon emissions produced from start to finish) and environmental impact. There is considerable interest, and gaining traction of this topic in Canada. More hospitals are including planetary health in their strategic plan as we take more notice in the importance of building sustainable and resilient systems in the face of climate change. Smaller scale initiatives, informed by evidence and maintaining safe clinical care, are underway. "Cut the Carbon" campaign is one such example in Ontario, and operating room scorecards which provide ways to cut carbon emissions, are another example. The goal is to create policy tools and recommendations for hospital systems to prioritize reusable devices in procurement, with a focus on high-impact items. The research aims to produce a data-driven policy brief for use across Canadian and the UK. By demonstrating that environmental sustainability and quality patient care can coexist, this proposal contributes to global efforts to create greener, more sustainable healthcare systems.
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