University of Melbourne achieves Aspiring Beacon Site recognition and strengthens collaboration with the UK Centre for Sustainable Healthcare
Enterprise Professor Eugenie Kayak and Dr Sonia Chanchlani are excited to announce a new collaboration with the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (CSH) in the UK and the recognition of the University of Melbourne as an Aspiring Beacon Site. This new collaboration will help educate and empower staff and students to design and implement sustainable quality improvement (SusQI) to transform the University and our affiliated hospitals.
Dr Sonia Chanchlani and Dr Ben Dunne facilitating an action oriented workshop on sustainable healthcare quality improvement.
Over the past year, we have been piloting SusQI workshops in various interprofessional subjects, courses and modules at the University of Melbourne, including the EXCITE Masters of Clinical Education, Sustainability and Healthcare (POPH90304), and the student led ChangexUnzipped Global Health Conference.
The team have also adapted the resources to pilot a successful interprofessional environmental sustainability competition at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, resulting in a 2.5 million kilogram CO2e reduction in carbon emissions and financial savings of $500,000. The competition is expanding to include the Royal Women’s Hospital and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in 2024.
Next year we will be working with the CSH to develop an interprofessional workshop to deliver their evidence-based SusQI framework. This will be the first such offering in Victoria designed to embed sustainability principles and techniques into established quality improvement and systems change education and practice.
“Action-focused education is key to enabling the clinical workforce to understand, manage, and mitigate the health effects of climate change and apply the principles of environmentally sustainable healthcare to build the skills necessary for system transformation at the speed and scale required,” says Enterprise Professor Eugenie Kayak.
If you are interested in participating in a Sustainable Healthcare Quality Improvement or Carbon Footprinting workshop, please fill out this form here.
You can also contact Sonia.Chanchlani@unimelb.edu.au or Eugenie.Kayak@unimelb.edu.au for more information.