Environmentalists Seek Common Ground with IPs
Reusable isolation gowns go green, save green
April 1, 2024
Too often cast in conflict, environmental sustainability and infection prevention actually have many opportunities for cooperation to improve both missions, says Emily Mediate, MSc, MPP, director of climate and health in the United States for Health Care Without Harm, a global organization.
“[There is this] false conflict that’s presented between quality of care, infection prevention on one side and sustainability on the other,” she says. “There’s actually a lot of innovative solutions where we can grow multiple trees with one seed, so to speak. We can address cost savings and climate change and quality of care simultaneously. Waste reduction is a great example of that. You’re seeing budget savings and pollution prevention, and I think infection preventionists get that.”
Another example is a prescient material supply switch from disposable to reusable isolation gowns at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Health in 2014.
“Making these changes before the pandemic hit meant UCLA Health did not experience shortages,” Healthcare without Harm reports.1 “At other organizations, healthcare workers faced severely limited supplies of disposable gowns, and in some notable cases, staff wore plastic bags for protection.”
According to the report, reusable gowns cost 50% less than disposables and last between 75 to 100 washings, reducing the carbon footprint of waste and saving the hospital $450,000 annually.
“We know that reusable gowns are safe and protective,” Mediate says. “There’s not increased risk of any hospital-acquired infections. And, obviously, they have a smaller environmental impact than disposables.”
The barriers really appear in terms of the collaboration required to get a healthcare system on board with such a change. “You can’t just implement that without getting group purchasing organizations on board and thinking about access to laundry to wash reusable gowns,” she says.
Thus, the organization raises awareness and encourages adoption of sustainable measures that have proven beneficial in clinical settings.
“We have a Global Green Healthy Hospitals Network, which [includes] healthcare organizations, hospitals, from all over the world,” Mediate says. “In the U.S. that network is more than 1,700 hospitals. We’re trying to drive a zero emissions, climate-resilient, sustainable, and equitable healthcare sector.”
Jenny Collins, RN, MSc, PgD, is Health Care Without Harm Europe’s sustainable infection control and prevention coordinator.
“There [are] many areas that we work on in sustainability that are inherently linked to infection control, from surveillance to sterilization, all these laundry processes, everything that’s really necessary to make change and a hospital more sustainable,” she tells Hospital Infection Control & Prevention. “We want to come to this One Health approach as infection control practitioners. We really need to be aware of this burden of disease, the impact that both climate change and pollution are having.”
Mediate says, “I think infection preventionists in particular can be really strong allies and messengers about this. Climate change is harming health now, and that’s affecting healthcare access and quality.”
Although their message has urgency, Health Care Without Harm is aware of the reports of harsh labor conditions in Malaysian medical glove manufacturing plants to meet demand.
“That is really on our radar,” Collins says. “We take it very seriously that ‘without harm’ means ‘without harm.’ The global [medical] gloves campaign that we’ve launched includes criteria looking at the rights-based and forced labor component. For us as an organization, it’s really important that this issue, not only in specific examples of sustainability, but that the whole supply chain, is really addressed.”
REFERENCE
- Health Care Without Harm. UCLA Health hero ensures PPE supply during pandemic & beyond. Medium. Published July 21, 2021. https://noharm.medium.com/ucla-health-hero-ensures-ppe-supply-during-pandemic-beyond-c1ab3e448c66
Too often cast in conflict, environmental sustainability and infection prevention actually have many opportunities for cooperation to improve both missions, says Emily Mediate, MSc, MPP, director of climate and health in the United States for Health Care Without Harm, a global organization.
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