Is Health Care Sustainable?
In this episode of The Vitals, we explore a question that sits at the intersection of medicine and the future of the planet: Can health care truly become sustainable?
Host and Neurosurgery Physician Assistant Leslie Schlachter is joined by a multidisciplinary team of Mount Sinai experts working across clinical care, energy and infrastructure, and supply chain operations. Together, they unpack how sustainability efforts are being integrated into one of the most resource-intensive industries in the world—healthcare.
Whether you’re in health care, policy, simply interested in climate solutions, this episode sheds light on how systemic change is happening—and what it will take to push it further.
Learn more about Mount Sinai’s sustainability practices here.
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00:00:00:05 - 00:00:16:34
Colin Barnett
We've all made great strides in reducing our emissions, and we all have a long ways to go to get, you know, to 50% by 2030. And, you know, net zero by 2050. But if you compare our emissions across to campuses, we're all within, you know, 5 or 10% of each other.
00:00:16:38 - 00:00:33:15
Leslie Schlacter
If there was like an end goal at 2030 and somebody's got to say that they're the most sustainable, I feel like that would be something to shoot for. We would probably want to win that.
00:00:33:19 - 00:00:57:06
Leslie Schlacter
Hi. Welcome back to The vitals. I'm your host, Leslie Schaffner, a physician assistant here at the Mount Sinai Hospital. And on this episode, we're discussing sustainability and climate change and their relation to health care, specifically how Mount Sinai sustainability initiatives are reshaping the future of health care from energy efficient infrastructure and waste reduction to sustainable food systems and supply chain innovation.
00:00:57:10 - 00:01:20:55
Leslie Schlacter
To discuss our initiatives, we're joined by Doctor Moy, Tren and Carlos and Colin from our supply chain and infrastructure and energy team, all of whom are sustainability and climate experts here at Mount Sinai. So you guys all do completely separate things, but towards the same goal right. Essentially. So you're an anesthesiologist. You work four days a week as an anesthesiologist here.
00:01:20:56 - 00:01:36:45
Leslie Schlacter
Correct? Correct. Okay. And then one day a week for sustainability. Correct. And you are energy and infrastructure and your supply chain. Correct. What does that mean to people outside of a hospital? Even in the hospital, I don't even really know what that means. What do you guys do?
00:01:36:50 - 00:01:52:34
Carlos Maceda
So from my perspective, I'm responsible or our team is responsible for the procurement and the delivery of all the supplies that go out throughout the medical center. So whether it's the stuff that you use, the robots that you use, we procure it to the supplies that are used in the actual cases.