Developing a framework/model to environmentally sustainable and climate neutral health and care systems using the Kidney care pathway

Current measures in healthcare systems are insufficient to reach the EU Green Deal goals. The social, economic and clinical consequences are significant. Reasons that current initiatives fall short include lack of awareness as to the problem, or potential solutions. There is complexity as to what process to choose, the low cost, the low carbon, the one that provides better care or the one which has the better social impact. The current system has insufficient investment in sustainable education, policy or research. Solutions work well in limited areas but are inefficient as a model for true systemic change. There is no agreed system of environmental foot printing in the health system and few partnerships with industry and patients to develop a truly sustainable system. Kidney care is a suited test case with its large resource footprint and well-defined care pathways. KitNewCare’s consortium will solve the problem with leading experts in kidney care, life cycle assessment methodology, education, dissemination and communication, health economics, and data management. KitNewCare will perform an EU-wide mapping of the sustainability landscape to reveal the hotspots across different clinical centres in each impact area. To locate solutions Quality Improvement Cycles will be utilised to analyse clinical pathways and industry innovations. KitNewCare will co-develop and pilot sustainable tools (such as the purposefully developed actionable dashboard, based on the 4-factor LCA model, which will monitor and benchmark the 4 different outcomes) innovative solutions, training, guidelines and recommendations as a proof of concept which can then be applied to the healthcare system; Our work will be informed by a stakeholder interaction and a Patient and Public Involvement programme to ensure proper design, uptake, dissemination and exploitation. This will enable decision makers and healthcare providers to reduce pollution, carbon emissions, and waste.