Partnering with Safer Care Victoria for the Sustainable and Quality Use of Diagnostics in Emergency Departments Project
The University of Melbourne is Victoria’s sole Sustainability in Quality Improvement (SusQI) Beacon Site, integrating environmental sustainability into the way we educate and train our students and health professionals in quality improvement. Dr Sonia Chanchlani, Senior Fellow in Sustainability, Climate and Health, has completed SusQI Academy training through the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (UK), and is leading this initiative within the Sustainable Healthcare Team in the Department of Critical Care.
Our Sustainable Healthcare team held their first interprofessional SusQI workshop in October, 2024. The sold-out half day in-person event brought together 50 healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses, allied health staff, and sustainability officers. It equipped participants with the skills to design, implement, and calculate carbon emissions for quality improvement projects in their health settings with an environmental sustainability lens. All participants reported they would recommend the workshop to a colleague.
The workshop led to a partnership with Safer Care Victoria to develop a bespoke 2-day workshop for their state-wide Sustainable and Quality use of Diagnostics in Emergency Departments Project. This project will work with Victorian emergency departments over a two-year period to reduce low-value diagnostic pathology, imaging, and interventions. On April 8th and 9th, 65 participants from 11 Victorian emergency departments attended the workshop, gaining foundational skills to design and execute their chosen projects. This workshop was delivered by the Sustainable Healthcare team alongside external facilitators with expertise in quality improvement, healthcare transformation, Choosing Wisely, behaviour change and carbon footprinting.
SusQI training is also an important component of the University of Melbourne Health Service Environmental Sustainability Competition. Now, in its third successful year and led by Dr Ben Dunne and the Department of Critical Care Sustainable Healthcare team, was shortlisted for a Victorian Public Healthcare Award in 2024. Participating health services (Royal Melbourne Hospital, Royal Women’s Hospital and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre) engaged front line clinical and non-clinical staff to lead 44 projects demonstrating cumulative carbon and financial savings over 3 years amounting to: $2.1 million; 2.7 million kg of CO2 equivalent, 4.7 tonnes of waste and 810,000 items kept from landfill. In 2025, the competition is expanding to 9 participating health services, and we anticipate significant ongoing carbon and financial savings.
Exploring the impact of empowering staff with sustainable quality improvement skills is one of the key projects within the $1 million NHMRC grant awarded to the University of Melbourne. This groundbreaking grant, led by A/Prof Forbes McGain, is the first of its kind dedicated to sustainable healthcare.