Greenhealth Magazine
BY PAUL R. BARACH, NSW DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA; FORBES MCGAIN, DEPARTMENT OF ANESTHESIA AND INTENSIVE CARE, WESTERN HEALTH, MELBOURNE; NICHOLAS R. COX, DEPARTMENT OF CARDIOLOGY, WESTERN HEALTH; SERINA S. CECCHIN AND SCOTT MCALISTER, ECOQUANTUM LIFE CYCLE EXPERTS
Economic and environmental sustainability are essential to maintaining high-quality health care. Numerous medical innovations have demonstrated that modern cardiovascular care is in constant flux. But health care’s increasing predilection for single-use oil-based plastics and metalware is unsustainable in the long run.
Health care providers tend to be isolated in their specialized domains, with a limited understanding of the full process, the complexity, and the broader implications of how daily health care practices impact the environment. Sustainable solutions will enable cardiologists not only to make sound clinical decisions and provide safer procedures but also to address the growing economic and environmental challenges faced by today’s health care systems.
…In the United States, reprocessing of expensive angiography catheters has become a major industry because of the significant cost savings possible. Platinum can also be recovered (in lieu of discarding it), which provides some financial benefit to the hospital…