[Sustainability-national and international initiatives in intensive care and emergency medicine].

Abstract

Background: Climate change with global warming, natural disasters, species extinction and soil erosion is doubly relevant for medicine: On the one hand, heat waves, floods and other natural disasters lead to new disease patterns to which healthcare systems must adapt. On the other hand, the global healthcare system itself contributes to these effects, as it is estimated that the CO₂ footprint of all healthcare facilities accounts for around 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Objectives: National and international initiatives to promote sustainability concepts in intensive care and emergency medicine.

Materials and methods: Research on homepages of national and international (specialist) societies dealing with intensive and emergency care medicine and corresponding PubMed search (sustainability and climate change and emergency or intensive care medicine).

Results: Six of the 12 national specialist societies surveyed have taken initiatives on sustainability, notable among them the initiative of Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Wissenschaftlichen Medizinischen Fachgesellschaften (AWMF) for a new registration of the S1 guideline "Sustainability in intensive care and emergency medicine". On the international scene, the activities of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) with numerous publications on the topic of sustainability in intensive care medicine and the practical guide "A beginners guide to sustainability in intensive care medicine" as well as the European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (ESAIC) with a consensus paper on sustainability should be highlighted.

Conclusions: At the national level, initiatives on sustainability (guidelines, working groups, forums) are emerging and are attracting increasing attention and activity. The umbrella organization of German Intensive Care Medicine, the Deutsche Interdisziplinäre Vereinigung für Intensiv- und Notfallmedizin (DIVI), has so far shown no (discernible) activity; there is an urgent need for action here, and health policy and the German Medical Association should also become (even) more involved in reducing the CO₂ footprint in the healthcare sector. Internationally, there are a number of societies and institutions that are promoting the topic of "sustainability", although a stronger focus on the area of intensive care and emergency medicine would also be desirable here.