Hybrid Phaco: Driving circularity in eye surgery with a semi-disposable phacoemulsification redesign

Cataract surgeries using phacoemulsification (phaco) are standard practice, accounting for the large majority of all cataract surgeries. Reliance on sterilization processes has significant environmental implications, giving its energy and resource intensive nature. <br/><br/>This thesis introduces a novel hybrid phaco handpiece design,...

Enhancing Energy Efficiency and Sustainability in Healthcare: Implementing a Heat Exchanger for Carbon Footprint Reduction

This paper addresses the urgent need to optimize the GreenCycl facilities energy utilization, by harnessing heat from the effluent of three thermal washing-disinfection machines into the preheating of cold clean water. Currently for every washing-disinfection cleaning program, 60 times a week, 105 liters of water with a temperature of 60 \degree...

Enhancing the Experience of Pregnancy Detection: Design and Embodiment of a reusable pregnancy testing device

Pregnancy tests are the most used diagnostic test in the world where the market is expected to be worth $1.5 Billion. However, since its introduction to the market in 1976, it has experienced limited innovation. Despite its importance in providing crucial information about a significant life event, women continue to rely on outdated and limited...

DrugWise: a sustainable approach towards reducing medicine waste in the operating rooms

-What- <br/><br/>Medicines are used for all types of surgeries in the operating room (OR). They are needed to provide safe and effective care. However, the use of medicines also results in waste. Research conducted by Barbariol et al. (2021) highlighted that a substantial proportion, ranging from 20% to 50%, of medications prepared in the OR...

Stimulating waste separation in the Intensive Care Unit: Exploring opportunities for Circular waste streams

This design thesis explored the possibilities of recycling medical waste from the Intensive Care Unit of the Erasmus MC Hospital in the transition towards Circular ICUs. Through a combination of qualitative research methods, such as observations, interviews and waste audit, the medical context and the waste composition were explored. By...

Towards a Circular ICU: How to implement reusable video laryngoscopes at the ICU

The healthcare sector uses a lot of on single use medical products, causing large amounts of CO₂ emissions and excessive amounts of waste. This project contributes to a circular Intensive Care Unit (ICU) by investigating the barriers and possible solutions for a transition from single use video laryngoscopes (VL) to (partly) reusable ones, in...

Towards Circular ICUs: Reuse of intubation devices as a catalyst for systemic change

This project aims to reduce the environmental impact of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), the department which provides constant care to critical patients. One of the most common and wasteful ICU procedures is intubation. Intubation is needed when patients cannot breathe by themselves. Can we design a circular intubation procedure as a catalyser...

Reducing the environmental impact of gloves used in the Intensive Care Unit: Towards greener ICUs

Background<br/>The healthcare sector is one of the most polluting sectors in the Netherlands. To limit the environmental impact of the medical sector, Erasmus MC collaborated with Metabolic to conduct a Material Flow Analysis (MFA) and Impact Assessment for the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The research revealed the hotspots of the ICU,...

The Circular Redesign Focus Point tool: A novel method to determine focus points for redesigning surgical devices for circularity

For healthcare, an industry that is currently responsible for up to 10% of the global carbon footprint, the transition to carbon neutrality and circularity will be an enormous challenge. As 20-30% of the total hospital waste originates from operating rooms, optimising recovery from these waste streams has the potential to make a significant...

Healthcare Sustainability Mode and Effect Analysis: Design, validation, and clinical application of the HSMEA tool to improve the environmental sustainability of healthcare

Sustainability is becoming more important in numerous industries, including healthcare. Action to achieve sustainability is undertaken by various means, such as the Green Deal Healthcare. Several tools exist that can assess the environmental impact of a certain industry or company, but no tools exist that aid in actively lowering this...