Climate Catch Lab
The Climate CATCH lab is a joint initiative of the University of Melbourne School of Population and Global Health and Melbourne Medical School, within the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Science, and Melbourne Climate Futures.
The Climate CATCH Lab allows for collaboration between multidisciplinary teams to create transformative change in health and healthcare.
2024 Sapling Funding projects
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Lead: Dr Ben Dunne
This project will build on initial research outcomes from the early stages of the NT Health implementation and the evolution of the Melbourne Hospital Sustainability Toolkit - an innovative digital toolkit to identify and prioritise sustainable healthcare initiatives. In collaboration with Mercy Health, the project team will research and support implementation of the Melbourne Hospital Sustainability Toolkit across Mercy Health’s 2 main hospital sites.
Transforming Environmental Sustainability in Hospitals A Toolkit to Facilitate Change 2024
2023 Seed Funding Projects
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Lead: Forbes McGain
This project aims to replace single-use disposable infection prevention gowns with reusable infection prevention gowns at Melbourne University affiliated hospitals (including Austin Health and Melbourne Health), following successful pilots at a number of hospitals across Australia. This research will engage various health service stakeholders to better understand factors that drive reusable gown uptake and opportunities to expand their use, to ultimately reduce healthcare waste and pollution.
Mid-way progress update
Single use equipment in healthcare has become the standard practice in many countries globally. This leads to excessive waste, both financially and environmentally, and contributes to high carbon healthcare. Personal protective equipment (PPE) remains primarily single-use rather than reusable equipment. Disposable PPE is an important contributor to total single-use equipment in healthcare. There are alternatives to disposable PPE, for example, reusable gowns have been safely implemented within Australian hospitals by accredited suppliers, in place of disposable gowns. The aim of the Reusable Gowns research project is to trial reusable gowns within health services and understand the views of healthcare workers toward reusable gowns, the barriers and enablers to their implementation and use, and the environmental and financial impacts of replacing single use gowns with reusable equivalents.
So far, several key project milestones have been completed, including finalising the research protocol, obtaining ethics approval, developing data collection tools, recruiting participants, collecting data and piloting reusable gowns within a health service. Reusable surgical gowns have been trialled at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre by healthcare workers in surgical theatres. Participants taking part in the pilot completed surveys before and after trailing reusable surgical gowns, to gain information on their perspectives of using the reusable gowns (including comfort, durability and satisfaction), as well as the perceived barriers and enablers to implementing reusable gowns within health services. Furthermore, two additional health service sites may trial reusable gowns and be included in the Project. However, these sites are pending confirmation. At the conclusion of the reusable gowns project, a final research report will be delivered.
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Lead: Sonia Chanchlani
This project will support implementation and evaluation of an innovative digital toolkit to identify and prioritise sustainable healthcare initiatives, and will partner with the NT Department of Health to pilot the toolkit in several facilities to inform its expansion across other settings..
Mid-way progress update
Sustainability actions require focused time, support, and capacity with top down and bottom up efforts. The DEA Actions for Hospital Sustainability was developed to amplify sustainability and climate change mitigation in the areas of:
- organisational level guidance for executives, leadership teams, and facilities management
- advice on how to establish sustainability teams and networks
- practical tips on projects that can be introduced at local ward/unit level
- Project management, activity prioritisation and reporting
- kick start local projects to improve engagement
We are on our way towards the goal of implementing the Toolkit in 4 of the 6 NT public hospitals by June 2024 and meeting our primary and secondary objectives that include increased quantity and quality of sustainability projects being undertaken and measurable improvements in local sustainability metrics as we validate the utility and value of the toolkit itself.
we have made great progress over the last 6 months developing our protocol, integrating with NT Health IT systems, obtaining ethics approval and conducting our pre-implementation interviews. Initial analysis of our data using the evidence-based NASSS framework has highlighted barriers and enablers to be considered and mitigated prior to implementation of the Toolkit in March. We will be working toward post implementation data analysis and outcome review by June 2023. We have been approached by other health services and are excited to work with stakeholder organisations as there are great opportunities for not only Toolkit expansion but also further research into optimisation, implementation and scaling.