PART 2 – Clinical Leaders as Drivers of Sustainability: A Physician-Researcher Perspective
Wednesday, March 16, 2022 | 11:00 AM EST | Virtual
Presented with the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education and the Mass General Center for the Environment and Health, this session will explore the climate impact of clinical care and why clinician leadership and research are critical in reducing health care emissions.
In this session participants will:
1. Learn why clinical sustainability is a key strategy in promoting climate-smart health care
2. Understand how reducing low value, inefficient clinical practices can reduce health care emissions
3. Hear why research, clinician leadership, and climate-health innovation centers are needed to deepen emission reduction across the sector
The health care sector has a large climate footprint, largely due to the tremendous resources required to provide clinical care. Reducing inefficient, low-value clinical practices can yield waste and emissions reductions, and lead to clinical sustainability.
Recognizing the need to address this issue, hospitals are appointing physicians as medical directors of sustainability to lead efforts to reduce the impact of clinical services.
Research, including life cycle assessment, is critical to quantifying emissions and providing the data needed for medical professionals to make evidence-based decisions that improve the environmental performance of clinical care.
In this session, Dr. Slutzman will share winning strategies to create efficient, value-driven clinical care, along with his experience developing the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for the Environment and Health, and its mission to integrate environmental sustainability into the clinical, research, educational, and community health activities of the hospital.
