ArticleJournal of medical ethics2023
'Climate change mitigation is a hot topic, but not when it comes to hospitals': a qualitative study on hospital stakeholders' perception and sense of responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions.
Article in Journal of medical ethics, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- Should healthcare professionals include aspects of environmental sustainability in clinical decision-making? A systematic review of reasons.BMC medical ethics · 2025Pooled it
- Thinking clearly about climate change and mental health.Australasian psychiatry : bulletin of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists · 2023Pooled it
- Climate change and professional responsibility: a cross-sectional survey among German general practitioners.BMC medical ethics · 2026Article
- Adapting and mitigating: an exploratory Delphi approach to climate change impacts on healthcare institutions in Switzerland.Dialogues in health · 2026Article
- Perceived Health Risk of Climate Change and Public Support for Sustainable Health Policies in South Korea.Health services insights · 2026Article
- Value-based outsourcing is associated with better environmental and economic sustainability metrics while maintaining patient safety: a comparative analysis of electricity use, water use, and prescription costs in public hospitals of Madrid (Spain).Frontiers in health services · 2026Article
- Development and evaluation of educational activities for medical students and pediatricians about climate and health.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- [S1 guideline on sustainability in intensive care and emergency medicine].Medizinische Klinik, Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin · 2025Review
- The role of environmental impact assessments in hospital care: Healthcare professionals' views on research and implementation priorities.Health research policy and systems · 2025Article
- Article
- Factors influencing medical students' knowledge and attitudes toward climate change: A cross-sectional study.PloS one · 2025Article
- A Systematic Review of Factors Influencing the Adoption of Green Practices Within Healthcare Centers to Mitigate Climate Change.Environmental health insights · 2025Review
- Ambition With Uncertainty: Exploring Policy-Makers' Perspectives on Pathways to Net Zero Healthcare.International journal of health policy and management · 2025Article
- Aware but unprepared: the impact of climate change on healthcare workers and service delivery in Africa - a scoping review.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- From curriculum to clinic: a qualitative study of junior doctors' perceptions of global health and sustainable development.BMJ global health · 2024Article
- Barriers and facilitators to implement the redispensing of unused oral anticancer drugs in clinical care: A hybrid-effectiveness type I study.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2024Article
- Anaesthesia and climate change: time to wake up? A rapid qualitative appraisal exploring the views of anaesthetic practitioners regarding the transition to TIVA and the reduction of desflurane.BMC anesthesiology · 2024Article
- Defending and Defining Environmental Responsibilities for the Health Research Sector.Science and engineering ethics · 2024Article
- [Sustainability in intensive and emergency care : A nationwide survey by the German Society of Medical Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine].Medizinische Klinik, Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin · 2024Article
- Triple planetary crisis: why healthcare professionals should care.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivePhysical and mental well-being are threatened by climate change. Since hospitals in high-income countries contribute significantly to climate change through their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the medical ethics imperative of 'do no harm' imposes a responsibility on hospitals to decarbonise. We investigated hospital stakeholders' perceptions of hospitals' GHG emissions sources and the sense of responsibility for reducing GHG emissions in a hospital.
methodsWe conducted 29 semistructured qualitative expert interviews at one of Germany's largest hospitals, Heidelberg University Hospital. Five patients, 12 clinical and 12 administrative employees on different levels were selected using purposive maximum variation sampling. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using the framework approach.
resultsConcerning GHG emissions, hospital stakeholders perceived energy and waste as most relevant emission sources followed by mobility. Climate change mitigation in general was considered as important. However, in their role as patients or employees, hospital stakeholders felt less responsible for climate change mitigation. They saw providing best possible medical care to be the top priority in hospitals and were often concerned that patients' health could be jeopardised by climate change mitigation measures.
conclusionPerceptions of most important emission sources did not coincide with those in literature, highlighting the need to inform stakeholders, for instance, about pharmaceuticals as important emission source. A frequently perceived conflict between reducing emissions and providing high-quality medical care could be eased, if reducing emissions would not only be justified as a contribution to mitigation, but also as a contribution to preventing ill health-a basic principle of medical ethics.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.