Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: As proponents of sustainable development within the health sector, we deem it necessary to highlight the critical importance of fostering multidisciplinary collaboration to address the urgent environmental and societal challenges facing healthcare today.The conventional silos in healthcare-encompassing medicine, nursing, and pharmacy-while effective in their respective domains, are insufficient when confronted with the complexities of sustainability [1].The specialization of medicine has often placed professionals in a gilded isolation, characterized by solid certainties yet, at times, blind to the genuine needs of the broader context, which now demands a more integrated and comprehensive approach [2].The integration of various disciplines, such as environmental science, engineering, economics, and social sciences, is not merely advantageous but necessary for tackling the intricate challenges of planetary health [3].This need is increasingly being acknowledged and prioritized by funders, researchers, and even policymakers, who are advocating for enhanced multidisciplinary collaboration [4].Healthcare significantly influences the global economy, influencing and being influenced by the broader environmental and socio-economic landscape.The sector is both a heavy consumer of resources and a substantial generator of waste, making its impact on the environment substantial.Hospitals, for instance, consume energy at a rate approximately 2.75 times higher than other types of commercial buildings, due to their extensive ventilation, heating, cooling, and lighting needs, essential for maintaining optimal conditions for patient care [5].Clinical laboratories further contribute to this footprint, consuming 3 to 6 times more energy per unit surface area compared to an office building [6].With medical waste volumes escalating globally, it is estimated that healthcare-related waste comprises about 1-2% of total produced urban waste [7].Considering those environmental stressors, together with greenhouse gases, particulate matter, air pollutants, and water use, it has been established that the global healthcare sector had a climate footprint of 2.0 Gt CO2e in 2014, equivalent to 4.4% of global net emissions [8].If healthcare were a country, it would be the fifth-largest emitter on the planet, whose highest contributions come from the United States (546 Mt CO2e), China (342 Mt CO2e), and the European Union (248 Mt CO2e) [8].This stark statistic is a call to action for incorporating sustainable practices that can drastically reduce such impacts.Multidisciplinary collaboration in sustainable healthcare significantly enhances the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare systems while addressing complex environmental and social challenges.This approach integrates diverse expertise from fields such as environmental science, engineering, economics, and social sciences, which is essential for developing
Institution: University of Padua
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems and Management
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,000
OpenAlex ID: W4405314670