Published in:
29-01-2024 | What's New in Intensive Care
Environmental sustainability and antimicrobials: an underestimated problem with far-reaching consequences
Authors:
Jan J. De Waele, Isabel Leroux-Roels, Andrew Conway-Morris
Published in:
Intensive Care Medicine
|
Issue 3/2024
Login to get access
Excerpt
In recent years, environmental sustainability in healthcare has gained increased attention. The main contributors to environmental impact are hospitals, clinical services, and the pharmaceutical industry. Hospitals account for most of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and within the hospital, the intensive care unit (ICU) is a top consumer of electricity, disposables, and pharmaceuticals [
1]. Most analyses focus on these general processes, but pharmaceuticals are a major contributor to GHG emissions [
2]; within this category, antimicrobials deserve extra attention as they impact the ecosystem in multiple ways, which we will further focus on in this manuscript. …