On Eco-friendly Technologies for a Sustainable Healthcare Environment

Over the last decades, the healthcare industry has contributed significantly to climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, and its waste only exacerbates the situation. On the other hand, several hospitals are becoming more eco-friendly, seeking to lighten their environmental footprints and provide safer health care for patients with less waste, more energy efficiency, and lower facility operating costs. To solve the aforementioned issues, more and more technology-based solutions are being implemented in healthcare systems worldwide. Many healthcare technologies have undoubtedly been developed to enable better resource, process, and crisis management. However, solving healthcare environmental problems may create more global environmental issues, if the technologies implemented are not eco-friendly and sustainable. In this study, we provide a summary of the environmental issues that health care is causing using the cause map method. We also investigate the existing efforts to address these issues using technology. The main finding of this exploratory work is that there is evidence that further migration to technology-driven systems is beneficial. However, it remains important to consider the ecological impact of each of the interventions suggested during the design phase to ensure its good impact on the environment during the subsequent implementation phases.