• Energy consumption: care settings are energy-intensive environments, where constant lighting, heating, cooling, and medical equipment usage are essential. High energy consumption contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and can strain local energy grids, leading to increased reliance on fossil fuels if not managed sustainably. Yet, in 2022, it was announced that greenhouse gas emissions from the healthcare sector have steadily increased to reach 5.2% of total global carbon emissions.² This represents more than twice the emissions from the aviation sector.
• Waste generation: healthcare facilities generate a substantial amount of waste, including hazardous materials like medical waste and chemicals and consume significant amounts of water for sanitation, medical procedures, and patient care. Taking USA by example, hospital generate about 33.8 pounds of waste each day, which leads to about 6 million tons of waste annually.³
• Transportation emissions: the transportation of patients, healthcare workers, and medical supplies to and from care settings contributes to air pollution and carbon emissions. In England, approximately 3.5% (9.5 billion miles) of all road travel relates to patients, visitors, staff, and suppliers to the NHS, accounting for 14% of the health system’s total emissions (including 5% for patient travel, 4% for staff commutes, 4% for business travel and fleet transport, and 1% for visitor travel).⁴

Are eco behaviors enough?

There is no sustainability without consistency and predictability.

• Around a third of medicine is waste, with no measurable effects or justification for the considerable expenditure.⁵
• Between 20-25% of all healthcare costs are attributable to unwarranted variations.⁶

• Failures of care delivery: includes the waste that comes with poor execution or lack of widespread adoption of known best care processes that are effective.
• Failures of care coordination: in this case, that’s all about the waste that comes when patients fall through the slats in fragmented care, resulting in complications, hospital readmissions, declines in functional status, etc.
• Overtreatment: waste that comes from subjecting patients to care that cannot possibly help them—care rooted in outmoded habits, supply-driven behaviors, and ignoring science.

How do clinical pathways help?

• Improving clinical processes consistency and standardization;
• Reducing waste and costs related to variation or bad care;
• Increasing compliance with best practices and optimizing outcomes;
• Enhance organizational predictability.

And how can UpHill support the transition towards greener hospitals?

• Costs of hospitalizations: remote patient monitoring allows to identify early signs of worsening of the condition and adjusting treatments remotely and avoiding readmissions. By reducing hospitalizations, we are also reducing the consumption of resources related to in-hospitalizations (medical supplies, invasive procedures, etc).
• Number of hospitals visits: patient-initiated follow-ups reduce the number of hospital visits letting go of rigid timeframes and considering the unpredictable nature of chronic crises. By reducing the number of hospital visits, we are also reducing transportation emissions and costs.
• Costs of defensive medicine: evidence-based decision making reduces the adoption of defensive medicine methods, decreasing the related costs. That is to say, by increasing compliance with best practices, we support cost-effective intervention, reducing unnecessary diagnostic tests, exams, prescriptions, etc.
• Paper waste: digital clinical pathways contribute to a paperless workflow that minimizes paper documentation waste.