Towards NetZero for hospital operating theatres.
other · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 40925553.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1098/rsif.2025.0048 and PMC identifier 12419882.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Hospital operating theatre suites are a particularly resource- and energy-intensive component of the health sector. Reducing their carbon footprint presents a significant challenge due to the necessity of maintaining patient safety. In this paper, we apply a multidisciplinary methodology to investigate and assess various strategies aimed at reducing the carbon footprint in hospital theatres. The strategies evaluated include (i) the duration of theatre ventilation operation, (ii) the efficiency of the ventilation strategy, and (iii) heat recovery systems and technologies. These approaches are assessed using a combination of theatre space monitoring (via building management systems), computational air-flow modelling and mathematical models. We develop a robust methodology that applies these modelling techniques to general hospital suites, enabling the estimation of reductions in CO<sub>2</sub> equivalent.
Medical subject headings
- Operating Rooms
- Ventilation
- Models, Theoretical
- Carbon Footprint