Reducing the environmental impacts of wound care in Qld public hospitals

Overview

If Australia’s healthcare system is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 in line with other countries, all avenues for reducing healthcare waste should be explored. Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand the lifecycles of wound care waste streams and to improve their usage as per the waste management hierarchy. This study aims to investigate both the amount of wound care waste generated as well as disposal behaviours in public wound care clinics in QLD with the overall purpose being to develop a co-designed fit-for-practice waste disposal behaviour change intervention.

Research activities

This research project will utilise an embedded mixed methods research design. With this embedded research design, two phases (Phase I – quantitative phase and Phase II – qualitative phase) are embedded within a major intervention design. The qualitative data generated in Phase II will help the research team understand the quantitative data generated in Phase I. In turn the data from both these phases will inform the development of a co-designed behaviour change intervention.

Outcomes

The anticipated outcome of this research project is a fit-for-purpose waste disposal behaviour change intervention that improves waste disposal in Queensland public wound care clinics that has the potential to be disseminated more widely. The aim is to prevent/avoid unnecessary waste generation, reuse waste where possible (e.g. on-sell surgical stainless-steel instruments to scrap metal businesses), and recycle non-contaminated waste where it cannot be repurposed. Reducing clinical waste destined for high temperature incineration will reduce CO₂e and save on hospital waste handling fees. Diverting waste for repurposing will reduce landfill space and recover finite resources, and recycling where possible will reduce CO₂e from waste disposal.

Skills and experience

Previous experience and an interest in the area.

Scholarships

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Keywords

• wound care
• sustainability
• waste management

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.