Foundational Patient Safety Principles Could Accelerate Decarbonization in Healthcare, Per New Journal of Hospital Medicine Perspective

Authors Propose Integrating Accountability, Data Transparency, and Public Reporting With Evolving Sustainability Practices to Reduce Environmental Footprint

The Journal of Hospital Medicine (JHM), the official peer-reviewed journal of the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM), released a new article in its “Perspectives in Hospital Medicine” series, “Lessons from Patient Safety to Accelerate Healthcare Decarbonization,” exploring the reduction of US healthcare pollution by integrating existing patient safety principles with evolving environmental sustainability practices.

“With growing global and domestic regulatory pressures for disclosing environmental sustainability data, it is increasingly likely that healthcare organizations will be asked to participate in measurement and data reporting in the future,” explains Hardeep Singh, MD, MPH, primary author of the Perspective and Professor of Medicine, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. “Despite current safety challenges, we see opportunities to apply existing patient safety measurement and reporting principles to proactively prepare and accelerate healthcare decarbonization initiatives.”

The authors explain how transparency, accountability, commitment to continuous improvement, publicly shared data, and quality ratings have guided advances in patient safety in recent years. As a result, health systems nationwide have implemented several patient safety improvement initiatives to reduce adverse events.

The authors suggest several adjustments to current voluntary environmental sustainability initiatives and programs to boost credibility and accountability and reduce the chances of greenwashing, including:

• Requiring baseline and periodic disclosure of third-party verified sustainability data
• Standardizing sustainability-related metrics
• Clarifying and publishing methods of data measurement, verification, and disclosure
• Providing forums for knowledge-sharing and crowdsourcing of accounting solutions
• Fostering more inclusive data-driven initiatives and mentoring less-resourced organizations
• Allowing healthcare organizations to set short- and long-term sustainability goals that are realistically achievable
• Requiring transparency of supporting data associated with any sustainability pledge, award, or certificate.

While voluntary programs exist to motivate healthcare organizations to participate in activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they do not currently disclose verified data and use inconsistent metrics, making it challenging to evaluate improvements. Applying these patient safety principles could catalyze more healthcare organizations to implement evidence-based environmental sustainability initiatives and ultimately decrease the industry’s environmental footprint.

“At JHM, we recognize the importance of addressing challenges relevant not only within the field of hospital medicine and the healthcare industry, but to society as a whole and climate change is one example that involves us all,” notes Samir S. Shah, MD, MSCE, MHM, Editor-in-Chief of JHM. “This perspective is a prime example of how healthcare leaders can look internally at existing best practices to propose tangible solutions that have impacts extending far beyond the hospital walls.”

Read the full study in the Journal of Hospital Medicine here.

About the Journal of Hospital Medicine:
The Journal of Hospital Medicine is the premier, ISI-indexed publication for the specialty of hospital medicine and official journal of the Society of Hospital Medicine. Published by Wiley, the journal advances excellence in hospital medicine as a defined specialty through the dissemination of research, evidence-based clinical care, and advocacy of safe, effective care for hospitalized patients. For more information, please visit journalofhospitalmedicine.com and follow the Journal of Hospital Medicine on X, formerly Twitter, @JHospMedicine.