SUSTAINABILITY SNAPSHOT SERIES:
ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE OPPORTUNITIES FOR HEALTH SYSTEMS
OPERATING ROOMS
Operating rooms (ORs) are key sites for patient care. However, these energy and waste intensive spaces also have a negative impact on the environment and – consequently – human health (1,2). The operating room contributes to environmental degradation in several ways. A life cycle assessment of the environmental impacts arising from hysterectomy surgery, for example, found that the major sources of operating room emissions were disposable materials and single-use surgical devices; energy used for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning; and anesthetic gases (3,4). Other sources of the operating room’s environmental impact include biohazardous medical waste such as fluids and contaminated materials, with the operating room generating up to a third of total hospital waste (2,4,5).
Beyond their environmental costs, medical supplies and energy spending in the operating room also represent a major financial cost to hospitals, accounting for 6% of Canadian hospital budgets (6). Implementing strategies to support environmental sustainability in the operating room therefore presents an opportunity to reduce waste and expenditure, while ensuring sterility and patient safety (5,7,8).
There are several options that may be employed individually or in combination to mitigate the environmental impact of the operating room. These options fall into five broad areas:
Adoption of environmentally sustainable anesthetic practices
Reduction of operating room kit waste
Reduction of waste
Resource Stewardship
Organizational and facility change
View the full OR Sustainability Snapshot to learn more about these sustainability interventions, and download the infographic below for a quick reference.
If you have thoughts or examples you’d like to share related to this Sustainability Snapshot, please add them in the comments section below.