Climate change is progressively beginning to dominate the global conversation, with current efforts at mitigating the impact of global warming falling significantly short. While we are all aware of the effects environmentally unfriendly practices can have on people’s health, only recently has there been more recognition of the role the healthcare sector plays in contributing to these practices.
As our society becomes increasingly concerned with environmental protection, medical devices that are strictly single-use and disposable are a glaring issue. The medical device industry is under pressure from regulators, hospital systems, governments and consumers alike to seek more responsible and sustainable solutions. From a commercial point of view, Jajoo Surgicals Pvt Ltd. always engage in developing sustainable medical products that continue to protect patients and healthcare workers from infection comes at a very real cost by the practices such as:
| Strategies employed by medical disposables manufacturers to reduce inefficiencies in the supply chain | Strategies that could be employed to improve the sustainability of medical devices: |
| Optimizing resource efficiency in production and utilize renewable energy sources | Investing in the development of reusable products with durable, long-lasting designs, that can be acceptably sterilized without high energy requirement. |
| Reducing packaging volumes / making more packaging recyclables. | |
| Using more efficient transportation or introducing in country production lines. | Facilitating the recycling or reprocessing of products through device design and support healthcare workers to engage with these programs. |
More sustainable manufacturing processes and medical devices
The most obvious way for vendors to address sustainability is within their production lines, distribution channels, and the products themselves.
While this is easier said than done (given the stringent regulations in place for medical devices and the need for products to be commercially viable), we investigate to internally reduce their carbon footprint:
The impact of sustainability on the purchase decisions as part of healthcare and pharmaceutical market research play an important role.
While some facilities do consider this very important, for most, concerns surrounding infection prevention and clinical outcomes are the deciding factor.
Systems to support the sustainable technology.
Many facilities are introducing environmentally friendly measures to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint.
SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING
We always review manufacturing processes which play an important role in reducing the impact of production on the environment. As well as optimizing logistics, businesses can reduce water use, strengthen energy efficiency and reduce the use of polluting chemicals. These initiatives can also help to reduce operating costs, which in turn, makes sustainability more commercially attractive.
Newer generations of manufacturing technology are also likely to play a part in reducing waste, whilst simultaneously producing a raft of business benefits, such as improved productivity and shortening time to market.
In sum, further technological innovation aiming to get as near as possible to “zero defect” manufacturing will, in all likelihood, produce inherent sustainability benefits. In relation to product design and engineering, there are many elements that we implement support sustainability. Optimizing the size of a device design and reducing the number of components can simplify the manufacturing process, reduce waste and reduce transport impact. If a product has minimal components and is easy to disassemble, this will also facilitate recycling and make the process cheaper.
