Abstract
Purpose :
The growing concern over climate change has become a prominent topic in healthcare, particularly within eye care. It has been leading to shifts in weather changes causing an increased prevalence of ocular traumas, eye pathologies, and various diseases due to increased exposures to heat, UV radiation, and pollutants. Given the healthcare industry’s contribution of 8.5% of the US’s Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) every year, our focus is on the evaluation of the sustainability of cataract surgeries, the most common eye surgery in the world.
Methods :
In this study, our team obtained a comprehensive set of data spanning numerous years of cataract surgeries across 2,095 patients. This data set encompassed details on costs of individual items, patient billings, surgeons, dates, times, and surgical venues. Data pertaining to concurrent procedures alongside cataract surgeries have been excluded from our analysis. Furthermore, our team manually collected data on the waste produced over 59 cataract surgeries performed by different surgeons over a 2-month period.
Results :
Our findings unveiled significant disparities in waste production between different surgeons and surgical locations. These findings also highlighted statistically significant observations that indicate a correlation between extended operating room time and increased waste production (p=0.00155). Similarly, reduced expenditure on supplies is associated with a heightened waste generation. We also determined that the facility’s mean expenditure per patient was $34,790.05, with a median and mode of $33,798.55 and $33,544.37, respectively.
Conclusions :
These results indicate multiple factors correlating to variations in waste production underscoring the potential for a multitude of sustainability measures that we can implement into cataract surgeries. These measures could include the reuse of supplies, modifying the packaging of certain materials and educating providers and administrators. These initiatives have the potential to be advantageous for the future of our environment, improve patient outcomes, and financially benefit hospitals.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.