Analyzing Surgical Techniques Using LCA to Inform Environmentally Sustainable Changes in Hospital Operating Rooms

The healthcare industry has reached unsustainable levels of consumption from a basic economic perspective, with healthcare spending comprising roughly 18% of the USGDP. The same might also be true of healthcare’s natural resource consumption. Hospitals are the most energy intensive building type in the US, and it is estimated that hospitals landfill or incinerate over 3.4 billion pounds of waste annually. In order to understand the relationship between medical procedures and more sustainable use of natural resources, researchers conducted Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) of four types of hysterectomies (abdominal, vaginal, laparoscopic, and robotic). A Monte Carlo model incorporated the uncertainty and variability of the data into the LCAs. The results allow researchers, engineers, policy-makers, and healthcare professionals to better assess which aspects of a surgery (e.g. reusable materials, single-use disposable materials, and energy use) contribute the most towards the surgery’s environmental impacts.