Sustainable Tech in the NHS – Webinar Round-Up
The sustainability movement has motivated businesses and individuals across the globe to transition to a more sustainable economy. This obliges businesses in every industry to take a more systemic view of their activities.
Cutting-edge technology is at the heart of transformation and is engrained in the entire procurement process, from green manufacturing methods and materials used to smart energy usage and production and logistics. For this webinar, we invited the top minds in MedTech and sustainable technology to discuss how technology can forge a new path for the NHS.
Designing Sustainability into Our Digital Service Delivery
““Digital systems have a similar carbon footprint to Aviation””
Our First guest speaker was Ben Tongue, Sustainability Lead at NHS Digital. Ben set the scene and gave us insight into how NHS Digital is looking at how we can design sustainability into our digital service delivery. NHS Digital has been working with NHS X and NHS England to design a digital workstream. This workstream has looked into how they can start to factor sensible decision-making choices for digital health solutions such as hosting choices, architectural choices and on-demand services but also looking at simpler reductions such as removing unnecessary data.
“We’re looking at critical points of failure for the business as part of our climate change risk assessment so looking at what things could happen that would stop us from being able to deliver our services from an environmental breakdown perspective”
The climate and environmental crisis is also a health care crisis, we have seen over the past year the effect Covid 19 has had on global health. Therefore, NHS Digital now have sustainability as one of the risk areas on their radar. Ben highlighted the importance of using sustainability as an action rather than an achievement for risk and resilience. Please click here to view presentation slides.
“We are living through what I call the first global sustainability disruption”
Does Technology Make a Difference to the Sustainability of the NHS?
Our second guest speaker was Abdullah Albeyatti, CEO and Co-Founder at Medicalchain and MyClinic and also a general practitioner from Leeds. For this webinar, Abdullah provided us with his expertise on if tech makes a difference to the sustainability of the NHS.
“The healthcare sector contributes to 5% of global net emissions”
Medicalchain uses blockchain technology to securely manage health records for a collaborative, smart approach to healthcare. Myclinic is an application that utilises Medicalchain technology to allow patients to communicate directly with their doctors and share their information for online consultations. Both these platforms contribute to sustainability as they reduce paper waste through digitalisation. Please click here for further reading.
However, as highlighted by Abdullah it is important to look beyond digitalisation as a reduction for paper waste it also expands further than this. Transport is a large contributor to global warming. When looking at telemedicine this provides a long-term benefit to sustainability as patients do not have to travel for consultations. However, it is important to get this balance right as face-to-face appointments are important. Please click here to download presentation slides.
“I think the only way to make this impact is if all of us play our part”
How Smart City Technology Will Help Achieve a Net-zero NHS
“Anything we can do to encourage the appropriate use of these forms amongst commuting staff, patients and visitors will greatly impact the NHS carbon footprint”
Following on from Abdullah our third Guest Speaker was Daniel Harborne Chief Technology Officer from Route Konnect. Daniel provided us with his insight into the benefits of using sensors and analytical tools to provide real-time insights into the movement of our cities that can help the NHS reach the net-zero target.
Through processing existing networks of traffic cameras to understand the flow of traffic can provide a very informed approach to route planning. Daniel used a case study from Hangzhou where they implemented this approach, and the response time of emergency vehicles was improved by up to 50%. If you are interested in the research by Route Konnect around Green Travel please click here or alternatively their presentation slides are available here.
Procuring Holistic Technological Solutions
“The first thing is understanding the current baseline is the most important step in, in developing a strategy”
Our Final guest speaker was Daphne De Leener a Sustainability Consultant from ETL. ETL is a multi-disciplinary consultancy practice that delivers net zero carbon and sustainability services that create value for their clients, society and the environment through ambitious, practical and achievable sustainability programmes and strategies. ETL has supported NHS Trusts in terms of strategic plan development and implementation of green planning, decarbonisation planning, travel planning and sustainable design guidance
Daphne highlighted the importance of using gap analysis to identify and address different emission sources to help us understand the technological interventions that we might need to be putting in place. Procuring holistic technological solutions can be challenging and time-consuming but ETL have the frameworks that are public sector compliant can simplify the process through supporting the implementation of low and zero-carbon technologies into estates. Click here to view presentation slides.
“There’s so much to consider and some of it is unknown at this stage but if you stay flexible and up to date with technologies, then we’re best placed to implement them and progress towards our target”
Get in touch to find out how you can get involved with the NHS Sustainability Partnerships Day of Action