Topics
Explore the Issues
Essential Themes Guiding Our Sustainable Healthcare Mission
Climate and Health
Climate change is more than an environmental issue. It directly impacts human health. From extreme weather events and poor air quality to food and water insecurity, rising temperatures affect physical and mental well-being. Shifting climates expand the reach of infectious diseases, while heat stress, respiratory illness, and harmful algal blooms create new health risks. Explore how climate change shapes health outcomes and discover resources on mitigation, adaptation, and resilience.
Healthcare Sustainability
Healthcare aims to improve health but also contributes significantly to climate change and pollution. U.S. healthcare accounts for about 8.5 percent of national greenhouse gas emissions, with hospitals as major contributors. Sustainability means delivering high quality care while minimizing waste, reducing emissions, and protecting communities. Learn about Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, why sustainability matters, and how health systems can reduce harm while improving care.
Stewardship
Stewardship focuses on using resources wisely. While antibiotic stewardship targets responsible prescribing, broader resource stewardship extends to energy, supplies, finances, and diagnostic practices. Reducing antimicrobial waste, optimizing diagnostic testing, and embracing radiology stewardship can lower environmental impact while improving outcomes. Stewardship offers a powerful dual benefit of protecting patients and preserving resources.
Infection Prevention and Control
Infection prevention safeguards patients while supporting sustainability. Preventing outbreaks reduces unnecessary treatment, hospitalizations, and resource use. High impact practices such as hand hygiene, vaccination, and targeted precautions improve safety and reduce waste. With proper waste sorting and greener approaches to PPE, infection prevention experts can lead sustainable change without compromising patient protection.
Telemedicine and Outpatient
Telehealth reduces travel, lowers emissions, and broadens access to care, especially in underserved areas. Outpatient settings can further support sustainability by cutting single use plastics, reducing unnecessary prescribing, and embedding environmental goals into quality improvement. Together, these efforts enhance convenience, equity, and environmental responsibility.
Laboratory Optimization
Laboratories are essential to diagnosis and treatment but also use large amounts of energy, plastics, and chemicals. Optimizing practices reduces waste and conserves resources while maintaining quality care. Diagnostic stewardship, such as avoiding unnecessary repeat tests, ensures that lab work is clinically meaningful and environmentally responsible.
Quality Improvement and Patient Safety
Sustainability and safety share a common mission of protecting health. Healthcare related emissions contribute to disease, making environmental harm another dimension of patient harm. Frameworks like Sustainable Quality Improvement SusQI integrate environmental, social, and economic factors into safety culture. By tracking emissions and waste alongside clinical outcomes, healthcare teams can ensure quality care benefits both patients and the planet.
Advocacy and Mobilization
Clinicians are trusted messengers and powerful advocates for climate and health. From talking with patients about air quality to shaping institutional and policy change, advocacy is part of the healthcare mission. Resources such as ClimateRx, the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, and training programs like CHEEA provide tools for effective communication and mobilization. Advocacy ensures healthcare voices help drive healthier, more sustainable communities.