PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jordi Rovira-Simon
AU  - Marc Sales-i-Coll
AU  - Patricia Pozo-Rosich
AU  - Juan Antonio Hueto-Madrid
AU  - Raquel Cánovas Paradell
AU  - Anna Ochoa de Echagüen Aguilar
AU  - Marta Carbonell-Cobo
AU  - Rodolfo de Castro
AU  - Genevieve Shaw
TI  - The Green Surgical Block 4.0: Automation of the operating theatre's climate conditions through a real-time patient-flow solution
AID  - 10.7861/fhj.2022-0142
DP  - 2023 Mar 01
TA  - Future Healthcare Journal
PG  - 46--49
VI  - 10
IP  - 1
4099  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/10/1/46.short
4100  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/10/1/46.full
SO  - Future Healthc J2023 Mar 01; 10
AB  - The energy consumed by surgery units constitutes a staggering part of the overall healthcare carbon footprint. Partly due to the demanding climate conditions necessitated by operating theatres (OTs), energy is also wasted because of poorly managed heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems (HVACs) that consume up to 57% of the total energy used in a hospital. With their goal of optimising OTs' performance and reducing patient waiting lists, heads of surgery units worldwide do not dare to risk cancelling scheduled surgery because of problems with the OT environment conditions (ie temperature, humidity, pressure). Current solutions are monolithic, complex and completely disconnected from healthcare logic, failing to take into account the idiosyncrasy of hospitals. This article presents an innovation that uses real-time patient flow data to automate and optimise the OT's climate conditions.