The healthcare sector is under increasing pressure. It must reduce its environmental footprint, while it must also maintain the highest standards of patient care. The use of in-hospital monitoring sensors, which are mostly low-cost, single-use devices, results in a significant amount of medical waste. However, the options for recycling these sensors are limited due to concerns regarding infection risks, logistical challenges, and use of legacy business models. This thesis looks at how circular design can be used strategically to improve in-hospital monitoring sensors’ lifecycle impact. This is done through a case study redesign of the Philips Gentle Care NiBP cuff as an example.

Adopting a research-through-design approach, the project integrated insights from environmental lifecycle impact, user research, value proposition and future context to pinpoint critical intervention points at product and system levels throughout the cuff’s end-to-end value chain. The findings showed that environmental impact is concentrated in the production and end-of-life phases, while impact during the use phase is minimal. The use of single-patient-use cuffs is done as a measure for infection prevention, but uncertified workflows currently dictate non compliant use and incorrect disposal, which compromises both safety and sustainability goals.
The insights led to a system-first approach in which multiple circular scenarios were explored. Of these, local reprocessing was identified as the most viable option, offering a balance between infection prevention, operational feasibility and circular performance. The proposed redesign, called Revo Care, incorporates a smart collect-and-dispense system for non-invasive blood pressure (NiBP) cuffs within high-acuity treatment rooms. This facilitates efficient workflows and encourages circular behaviour. RFID technology enables smart inventory and use tracking, resulting in lean and traceable systems, while a performance-based business model ensures viable implementation.

On a product level, the NiBP cuff was redesigned for full recyclability through a monomaterial polypropylene construction, eliminating fused multi-materials that previously made end-of-life recovery challenging. An new fastener system reduces the cuff’s physical footprint, while clearly defined sizing and placement indicators improve usability and measurement accuracy. The use of a detachable hose connector minimises material use over multiple patients and enables the effective separation of materials at the end-of-life. These design interventions resulted in a 76% reduction in manufacturing impact, and a sixteenfold reduction in lifecycle impact when combined with the new local reprocessing system.
For hospitals, the system supports growing sustainability targets while ensuring high infection control standards. For nurses, circular practices are reinforced through the seamless integration into existing workflows, improving ease of use. For manufacturers such as Philips, the shift to a performance-based business model creates a viable business case as it aligns the shift in value from volume to circular and safe performance.

This thesis concludes that circular innovation in clinical settings requires more than a sustainable product. It demands system integration, behavioural alignment, and viable economic models. Rather than relying on ideal user behaviour, circular design must be enabled through infrastructure, stakeholder coordination, and system-enforced compliance. Although this project is based on NiBP monitoring in the Dutch healthcare system, the strategic design principles, system enablers and product interventions proposed in this project offer a generalisable foundation for applying circular strategies across a broader range of in-hospital monitoring sensors.