Skip to main content

Energy in healthcare, welcomed in

To assure adequate energy and electricity for healthcare worldwide, those assisting first need to be welcomed in. 


To assure energy reduction and efficiency in healthcare, those involved must feel welcomed at the table.


Here are a few ways we can ask for a welcome, as well as welcome others in: 



*Structure international and national authorities to healthcare energy assurance. Assess for gaps at the table, including when partnerships develop for global assessments. [1}


*Structure the assessments of energy in healthcare. How is adequacy measured? How does a community define if they have enough energy and how are the definitions of quality of care mismatched? 


*Assess current response. How are philanthropic and nonprofit partnerships defining, assessing and responding to lack of energy in healthcare [2,3,4,5]? Where are the disconnects and mismatches?


*Assess for understanding of medical equipment and use within evidence-based guidelines. Where are these facilities in adoption of EBP? Who funds the medical equipment? How have biomedical engineers and regulators been incorporated at the quality table in these countries? 


*Assess for ongoing regulation and engineering expertise. Who can maintain energy analytics at the local level in LMIC, and who will take the lead? 


*Understand and have international coordination on off-grid energy systems for healthcare [6]. Who is defining quality with off-grid systems, how are the systems being regulated, and how is long-term energy supply remaining a long-term goal for these countries?


*Create structure to healthcare energy efficiency, reduction and sustainability. What are the metrics and indicators for local, national and global plans? What are the definitions? Who is responsible [7,8]? What are the timeframes, goals and reassessments going to look like? How can healthcare facilities licensing, quality accreditation and building permits be tasked with enforcement? How can national and international goals set accountability for deliverables? 


*Create structure to energy efficiency innovation in healthcare. How will innovation be funded locally and internationally? How can this be easily incorporated into patient safety research?


*Ask for industry leadership. How can biomedical and building/construction be tasked with leadership in healthcare energy reduction and sustainability? How can reimbursement support these efforts?


We must all be at the table to secure success with access to energy and electricity, and clean and efficient energy and electricity in healthcare.




  1. https://energyaccess.duke.edu/who-global-assessment/

  2. https://www.seforall.org/powering-healthcare

  3. https://www.seforall.org/system/files/2021-08/Powering-Healthcare-Africa-Project-SEforALL.pdf

  4. https://www.irena.org/offgrid/Healthcare

  5. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/06/05/you-cant-fight-pandemics-without-power-electric-power/

  6. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0625-6

  7. https://www.premiersafetyinstitute.org/safety-topics-az/energy/healthcare-energy-reduction-efficiency/

  8. https://www.reutersevents.com/sustainability/moving-renewable-energy-biggest-health-intervention-we-can-make

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mortality Data Accuracy Aligns With Hope

Mortality data accuracy is a cornerstone of pandemic management, and it is a cornerstone of any health issue. COVID data inaccuracy offers tremendous opportunity to improve healthcare epidemiology sustainably. And we can improve only when welcomed into one another's national space and place.   Mortality accuracy is challenging due to statistical logistics and geopolitics; it is also challenging due to sociocultural considerations.  We don't really know how each affects accuracy of the mortality data . We don't know the weight of each consideration because we haven't properly assessed them.   We have addressed some solutions for statistical logistics with COVID, such as improving real time data, use of EHR, use of cemetery and cremation data, use of excess death or other metrics, consistency to death definitions and strengthened regional epidemiology.  We have addressed few solutions for geopolitics related to COVID. Most solutions rely on normalizing the ex...
Post a Comment
Read more

Oxygen

Keeping it simple for oxygen coordination is best accomplished when we're welcomed in.  It’s good to support global leadership in medical oxygen supply management for underserved communities and countries in need.  It’s great to support efforts that strengthen individual country leadership toward national strategies on medical oxygen supply management.   Both require some tread into a country’s vulnerabilities on medical needs.  Let’s tread meaningfully and in a way that assures a welcome back.  Detail the coordinating agencies or government departments responsible for medical oxygen supply receipt. Meet with health administrators.  Detail a country’s current policies, compare with a global review and detail opportunities for policies on oxygen management. Is medical oxygen supply and/or maintenance an ongoing regulatory component within a country? What would it take to sharpen regulatory efforts? Is medical oxygen supply a component to ongoing emergen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Validation of Trust in Laboratory Science

Biomedical laboratory processes should be safe, with safety reporting assured in every space and place.  Global coordination of biomedical laboratory safety should include representative voices, tied to accountability, so that individual places and spaces are at the table. Approve the risk assessments through third party review. Most governments, administrations, organizations and healthcare guidance (including WHO) assign the responsibility of Risk Assessments to the Biomedical Laboratories. If there are standards to risk assessments, and standards to operations in laboratory science, a third party should be  weighing in on risk. Risk based on animals, vectors and biotissue studied, risk based on diseases studied, risk based on prior and current laboratory professional behaviors, risk based on facility design and risk based on clinical staff are all capable of third party analysis in conjunction with self analysis. Ask facilities and government liaisons what they would like i...
Post a Comment
Read more