The thoracic surgery patient’s journey through the hospital – a pilot project on resource consumption and potentials for sustainability

TL;DR

This pilot project studied the resource use of thoracic surgery patients to find ways to make hospital care more sustainable.

Contribution

The study quantifies disposable product use and packaging in thoracic surgery patient care, highlighting gaps in environmental data.

Findings

Disposable products made up 75% of items used per patient, mostly packaged in plastic.

Only 10% of products had available sustainability information from manufacturers.

30 life cycle assessment publications were identified, but data gaps remain.

Abstract

Medical societies around the globe are searching for ways to decrease the environmental impacts of patient care. This pilot project aims to identify potentials for more sustainability in clinical routine by investigating the resource consumption of thoracic surgery patients.

This single-centre, observational, prospective pilot project was conducted at the RWTH Aachen University Hospital, Germany, from May 2023 to August 2023. Five patients with planned video-assisted-thoracoscopic surgery for removal of (suspected) lung cancer were included and followed throughout their treatment at the hospital. We recorded resource consumption for their direct care and investigated the share of disposable and reusable products and the packaging of disposable products. Additionally, we conducted a PubMed literature search on available life cycle assessments of the utilised products and investigated manufacturers’ online information on sustainability aspects of their products.

An average of 1254 disposable (75%) and reusable (25%) products were used per patient throughout their hospital journey. Most disposable products’ packaging contained plastic. We identified 30 publications that reported life cycle assessments. Manufacturers provided information on sustainability aspects for 10% of the products utilised.

In-hospital patient care is resource intensive. Disposable products outnumbered reusable products at every stage of the patient’s journey and were mostly packaged in materials containing plastic. For the majority of products, no information concerning their environmental impact was accessible hampering informed purchasing choices by clinicians. Further efforts are essential to make environmental data available, leverage circular-economy systems, and ultimately decrease the environmental impacts of the healthcare sector.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00423-025-03782-w.

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