A team of researchers at the University of Sydney, including a sustainability analyst, a sociologist and cardiologist, has been able to map the carbon footprint of a cardiac patient, from hospital admission to discharge.
The study found that in Australia, the carbon footprint of a patient with two blocked heart vessels going to hospital for elective open-heart surgery was 4.9 times greater than a patient receiving a coronary stent (a tube used to keep open a blood vessel).
This is the first time researchers have been able to compare the carbon footprints of two clinical procedures that included the patient’s entire stay at a hospital.
“The aim is never to compromise quality of care; but to introduce carbon emissions as one of the possible considerations in decision making, especially as this issue becomes more relevant to everyone’s health,” said senior author Professor David Celermajer, from the Sydney Medical School, and Charles Perkins Centre.
The analysis in Frontiers of Public Health, uses a mathematical method known as EEIO (environmentally extended input output) analysis, that paints a more systemic picture of healthcare’s carbon footprint than previously available. This was because it treats a patient’s stay as not isolated to the immediate impacts of a single medical procedure and considers the full supply-chain impact of the patient’s stay in hospital.
