Environmental Efficiency Indices in the Public Hospital Sector: A Proposal

Abstract

In the past decades, the use of indices and indicators to report on the environmental performance of organisations has increased exponentially. However, the available studies did not address the topic of obtaining indicators that show the environmental behaviour of the health sector. The main objective of this research, therefore, was aimed at the calculation of environmental efficiency indices in the hospital sector, taking a regional hospital as a case study and considering the environmental aspects identified during the development of its healthcare activity in 2019. The results obtained provided information on the potential environmental impacts triggered by every aspect of the operation of a hospital in the course of its activities that focus on patient care. The results demonstrated that the aspects related to transportation of patients, workers, and materials had the greatest impact on the global environmental indices we calculated. For the environmental efficiency indices of hospital activities, the most significant environmental aspects were materials consumption and waste generation.

Healthcare in the Time of COVID-19: An Environmental Perspective on the Pandemic’s Impact on Hospitals

“…This study provides evidence of the impact of the pandemic on the environmental performance of healthcare facilities. In a previous study [33], the authors developed a tool to reliably compare environmental performance in healthcare organisations, proposing environmental performance indices in the hospital sector. This tool makes it possible to calculate a global environmental efficiency index and 11 environmental indices according to impact categories such as GWP (global warming potential) or HTP (human toxicity potential).…”

“…The overall impact of the hospital activity is calculated using the ReCiPe method [33]. In addition, the CML-IA baseline V3.05/EU25 methodology is used to assess the environmental impact in the 11 impact categories listed below: AD (abiotic depletion), ADF (fossil depletion), GWP (global warming potential for a 100-year time horizon), ODP (ozone layer depletion), HTP (human toxicity potential), FWAE (fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity), MAETP (marine aquatic ecotoxicity), TE (terrestrial ecotoxicity), POCP (photochemical oxidant creation potential), AP (acidification potential), and EP (eutrophication potential).…”

“…For each category and year, the different environmental efficiency indices [33] have been calculated and the results have been normalised, based on the specific hospital complexity unit (HCU) of each year and of the hospital under study:…”

Testing of a Multiple Criteria Assessment Tool for Healthcare Facilities Quality and Sustainability: The Case of German Hospitals

“…Additionally, studies have been conducted on sustainability assessment for healthcare facilities in developing countries, and less attention is devoted to high-income countries' hospital quality and sustainability [20][21][22]. Furthermore, the application of hospital-specific indicators may not be generally applicable to larger samples [23,24]. There is a need to identify practical approaches that measure sustainability and evaluate its outcomes [25,26].…”