The Design Intervention Opportunities to Reduce Procedural-Caused Healthcare Waste Under the Industry 4.0 Context – A Scoping Review

Abstract

The current medical device industry thrives on material redundancy and continues to advocate for a use-and-throw model of practice. Such redundancies are vital to ensure the safety of patients by preventing reinfection from reused devices, but the risks and costs of the waste generated are leaving hospitals and third-party resource handlers wary of future challenges.The Industry 4.0 revolution has started to redefine the production and consumption models of many industries. The main advantages of adopting these methods have been increased efficiency of systems and a reduction of redundant resources. But how do these new technologies help reduce the waste generated in medical procedures? This paper scopes the opportunities that come with implementing industry 4.0 to reduce procedural caused medical waste. These challenges and opportunities have been analysed at four hierarchical levels of innovation; the system, service, procedural and product levels. The research indicates that although the adoption of industry 4.0 concepts in healthcare is contributing to a more efficient use of resources, more research is required focused specifically on its impact on the production of procedure-caused medical waste.

Regulating Environmental Impact of Medical Devices in the United Kingdom—A Scoping Review

“…The first 200 results on Google Scholar were considered for each set of keywords. Google Scholar was used as the preferred database due to the wide-ranging subject matter being considered and the scarce data found through previous studies in select databases [11,13]. A further search was conducted on The Web of Science database with the keywords ((ALL = (medical device)) AND ALL = (regulation)) AND ALL = (environmental impact) OR ((ALL = (medical device)) AND ALL = (legislation)) AND ALL = (environmental impact).…”

“…However, some of these emissions can be reduced through supply chain initiatives [5]. The adoption of industry 4.0 strategies provides pathways to reduce transport requirements by encouraging in-house manufacture and reprocessing of devices [13]. As the current regulations allow both of these processes, research can help develop complete cradle-to-cradle device lifecycles and product-service systems within healthcare institutions, reducing transport emissions of supply chain requirements.…”

“…While medical devices generate GHG emissions throughout their lifecycle, many of these environmental impacts are determined at the early stages of the lifecycle, namely the design and development process [8,9]. There are various barriers to the ecodesign of medical devices, including lack of a regulatory push for ecodesign, high regulatory conformity requirements, lack of knowledge on ecodesign for medical devices and a lack of awareness or education on implementing ecodesign in practice [10][11][12][13]. Surveys with designers on this issue indicate that unless there is a regulatory push for environmentally conscious design of medical devices, there is a low probability of ecodesign being considered in the design process [10], but what is not clear is the regulatory push required, how it can be implemented and what are the challenges to enforcing environmentally conscious design of medical devices through regulations.…”

Medical Waste Treatment Technologies for Energy, Fuels, and Materials Production: A Review

“…Arun and Wang [184] investigated the implementation of industry 4.0 to decrease procedural MW, considering the system/service/procedural/product hierarchical innovation levels. They found that industry 4.0 concept application contributes to a more efficient use of resources in the healthcare sector, but more research is required as regards its impact on the production of procedure-caused MW.…”