Sean Woolen MD MS (ELP 2022) | Assistant Professor of Radiology, University of California San Francisco
Why Healthcare?
Global warming is arguably one of the most pressing concerns of our time. The healthcare sector is estimated to account for about 10% of the carbon dioxide emitted annually in the United States, making it a larger threat to climate change than most countries (ranked 13th of independent nations). The World Health Organization estimated that at least 250,000 deaths will occur every year due to climate change. Although all individuals are at risk of this public health concern, disadvantaged communities are most vulnerable. These communities often lack infrastructure that protects against extreme heat, poor air quality, flooding, and extreme climate events. Thus, this phenomenon should be considered a major current and future concern for health equity and public health.
As healthcare providers, we have taken an oath to help the ill and do no harm. However, the significant carbon emissions in the healthcare sector result in an ethical dilemma, as the current care being provided is projected to contribute towards future harm to the public from climate change and environmental pollutants. Now is the time for physician leaders and the healthcare community to act. Foundational data must be collected to inform innovation, policies, and implementation strategies to reduce carbon emissions of the healthcare sector. Hospital leaders, physicians, scientists, and industry can make a defining contribution to slowing climate change and protecting future health.
What Can Healthcare Providers Do?
Healthcare providers should begin to implement sustainable, quality improvement (QI) initiatives. Compared to traditional value models incorporating patient outcomes and financial impact, sustainable QIs incorporate a triple bottom line of environmental, social, and financial impacts of hospital operations. These initiatives allow decision-makers to look at the entire healthcare process holistically, and identify areas where sustainable improvements can be implemented within the decision-making process. Important steps in sustainable QIs include understanding the current process, measuring performance, establishing a specific goal, identifying the causes of the problems, prioritizing problem-solving efforts, and developing solutions through iterative testing. This process allows informed strategies to reduce the carbon footprint and allow continuous evaluation of the effectiveness of your hospital operations.
To date, the main efforts in the literature for reducing the healthcare carbon footprint are in the operating room by surgical specialties. Efforts include reducing volatile anesthetic agents, medication waste, single-use devices and materials, travel emissions from peri-operative appointments, surgical/procedural waste, and HVAC systems. Radiology literature has primarily focused on understanding the carbon footprint and reducing the energy consumption of radiology workstations. Prior published literature is a great place to start to estimate the potential carbon footprint decrease, operational cost reduction, and/or resource savings for future planned initiatives.
About Me
I am an assistant professor of Radiology at the University of California San Francisco. As a leader and radiologist, I am particularly passionate about initiatives with implications for health care policy and improving the quality of radiology department operations. I am currently supported by the American Roentgen Ray Society scholarship to build a sustainability radiology program. I was a foundational member in forming a University of California Sustainable Radiology collaborative and a UCSF Environmental Stewardship Committee. I am currently co-leading a collaboration with Siemens Healthineers to learn the energy consumption of medical imaging devices, identify areas of energy inefficiency, and innovate to reduce energy consumption. I hope to make a long-lasting impact by making implementation plans to reduce the amount of carbon emissions in Radiology. This led me to the Beahrs ELP program, which expands my abilities to balance environmental, economic, and social equity objectives strengthening implementation skills for environmental policies.
