Comprehensive geriatric assessment for hospitalized older adults can help inform prognosis and assess degree of frailty. As such, geriatricians play an important role in supporting patients and their caregivers in determining what “matters most” in their care. This includes ensuring that a patient’s personally meaningful health outcomes, goals, and care preferences are reflected in treatment plans. Interventions that generate additional testing and do not align with patient goals produce needless environmental impacts. Ensuring that care setting aligns with a patient’s goals of care can have an important impact on the carbon footprint of a hospital admission. An acute care unit (ward bed) generates 5.5kg of solid waste and 45kg CO2e (218 km by car) per hospital day, as compared to 7.1kg of solid waste and 138 kg CO2e (670 km by car) in an intensive care unit.
Sources: Avelino-Silva TJ, et al. Comprehensive geriatric assessment predicts mortality and adverse outcomes in hospitalized older adults. BMC Geriatr 14, 129 2014. PMID: 25464932. Health Aging in Foundation. Expert Information from Healthcare Professionals Who Specialize in the Care of Older Adults TIP sheet. [Internet]. 2019. [cited 2025 Jan 20]. Prasad PA, et al. Environmental footprint of regular and intensive inpatient care in a large US hospital. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 2022;27(1):38-49. Tinetti M, et al. The Geriatrics 5M’s: A New Way of Communicating What We Do. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2017 Sep;65(9):2115. Epub 2017 Jun 6. PMID: 28586122.