News

Sustainable healthcare relies on international collaboration, according to Dr. Frances Mortimer.

In her Hugh de Wardener lecture at WCN’22, Dr. Mortimer, medical director of the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare in Oxford (UK), will underline why sustainable healthcare is important for health conditions, especially kidney health, as well as the environment. She will focus on the following areas:

• The link between environment and health
• The contribution of clinical care to healthcare’s environmental footprint
• The principles of sustainable clinical practice
• Lessons from sustainable kidney care work to date
• Opportunities to link sustainability with healthcare quality improvement

“Human health is dependent on healthy ecosystems for the absolute fundamentals: clean air, food, water, shelter, and freedom from violence, for example, conflict over scarce resources and migration. Currently, these are all threatened by the global ecological crisis resulting from human activities,” she says.

Healthcare services are responsible for an estimated 5.4% of global greenhouse emissions. They are also responsible for other environmental and societal factors, such as plastic pollution, water pollution from pharmaceuticals, and abuse of labor in supply chains for medical instruments and gloves.

Dr. Mortimer will explain what is meant by “sustainable healthcare” and what can be done to achieve it: “Sustainable healthcare meets the healthcare needs of the population without compromising the health or healthcare of marginalized groups or future generations,” states Dr. Mortimer. “To achieve this, we need to consider the ‘triple bottom line’ of environmental, social, and economic sustainability. We must integrate these considerations into healthcare management, clinical service design, and even individual practice.

“Leadership from the healthcare sector to address these impacts can contribute to a wider social and economic shift to decarbonization and sustainable development,” says Dr. Mortimer.

Kidney care is one of the sustainable specialties at Dr. Mortimer’s Centre. Their website provides several examples of how to make this field more environmentally friendly, ranging from conserving water in hemodialysis and improving waste disposal to retrofitting heat exchangers in dialysis machines and patient follow-ups via telephone or electronic media.

Dr. Mortimer says that while financial investment is needed to help achieve sustainable healthcare, the changes will create greater efficiency and positively affect patients, reducing healthcare expenditure in the long term.

This will result in patient empowerment, both in terms of day-to-day chronic disease management and in decision-making about their care, as well as reducing activities such as unnecessary travel to clinic appointments. Achieving lean care pathways, low carbon alternatives, and operational resource efficiency are also among the principles of sustainable healthcare.”

The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare started in the UK but now operates increasingly on a global scale. Dr. Mortimer and her team had ‘observer status’ at the recent COP26 meeting, and Dr. Mortimer contributed to a panel discussion at the event.

“It’s important to collaborate internationally, especially in setting out the innovation challenge to industry to design more environmentally sustainable dialysis systems and equipment,” she concludes. “All are invited to join the online network.”

Dr. Frances Mortimer: “Green Technologies in Dialysis /Green Nephrology, the Hugh de Wardener Lecture. Plenary session, Sunday, February 27, 18.00-19.00 hrs Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) time, Room 1. https://cm.theisn.org/cmPortal/searchable/WCN2022/config/normal#!sessiondetails/0000015770_0