Anagrafe della ricerca

The interest in Sustainable Healthcare has been growing globally. It is being addressed by researchers, associations, and an increasing number of healthcare professionals, while the industry and large healthcare providers are struggling to move into this field. There has not yet been a valuable transfer of knowledge in education: interdisciplinary training tools on sustainable healthcare are totally lacking in the EU and global scenario. Different health stakeholders have unequal access to knowledge in the field of sustainability. The Literature Review (LR) identified other barriers and enablers (individual-level, organisation-level, system-level) for fostering environmental sustainability in health systems such as: Diffuse/unclear responsibilities for environmental impacts; Inadequate procedures and resources (concerning waste management); Organisational culture and leadership styles; Absence of appropriate regulatory frameworks and/or weak enforcement; According to relevant studies, first and foremost the report "Health Care’s Climate Footprint. How the Health Sector Contributes to the Global Climate Crisis and Opportunities for Action” by HCWH (2019), the 71% of healthcare emissions are mainly due to the healthcare supply chain, through production, transport and disposal of goods and services. Design and management skills are then of utmost priority to address the substantial environmental impacts of health systems, thus fostering the effort of the sector to operate in a sustainable way. The project addresses these issues by bringing together a cross-sector partnership to develop interdisciplinary training tools: HEIs and professional partners within the health industry and health providers, such as Hospitals and Medical Centres, are involved. The aim is to define, through the methodology and the role of Systems thinking, a multidisciplinary approach to identify and address the present and future training needs of the stakeholders that make up the healthcare value constellation, concerning sustainable healthcare. The project provide students and young professionals with the core design and management skills to address the sustainable transition of the EU healthcare sectors through: a training program with a specific agenda on sustainable design, sustainability management, Systemic Design; handbooks for personal learning, and an Intensive Training Course to allow students to challenge with small-scale projects by collaborating with colleagues from different sectors and backgrounds, promoting the exchange of experiences and skills. Following a period of evaluation, the validated training programme and handbooks will be released as the first virtuous example of training for sustainable healthcare. The project should be funded to meet the needs of both specific target groups as, to date, there are no training tools to deal with them.