Resource Depletion Risk for Medical Equipment: Embracing the Circular Economy

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides a conceptual framework linking resource depletion to medical equipment sustainability, useful for circular economy research in healthcare.

🏢実務担当者:Offers actionable suggestions for HTM departments to reduce resource consumption and costs through circular economy practices.

🏛政策担当者:Highlights the need for standards and regulations to promote circular economy in medical devices, relevant for healthcare policy.

As healthcare technology management (HTM) managers and clinical engineers, it is our responsibility to anticipate the market and understand risks, including considering the sustainable use of nonrenewable resources. Unexpected events that disrupt the supply chain seem to be happening more frequently, and these challenges are making it more difficult to ensure the sustainable availability of medical equipment and parts. Is this truly just a short-term result of the pandemic, or is it a sign of other underlying issues?As described by the Brundtland Commission in 1987, sustainable development “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”1 Medical equipment can do amazing things—and we expect that to continue forever—but we live on a planet with a limited amount of economically recoverable natural resources. Obtaining the needed nonrenewable mineral and energy resources to manufacture and operate this equipment will become more challenging in the decades ahead.At the 2021 International Conference on Medical Device Standards and Regulation,2 a panel titled Navigating the Pandemic: Ensuring Continuity of Patient Care was held. The panel sought to review the challenges facing the medical device sector as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; evaluate the efforts of regulators, industry, and clinicians to respond to those challenges; and discuss future actions that the industry may consider to prepare for the next critical event or pandemic. In addition to discussing supply chain issues related to the pandemic, the conversation addressed other challenges including the wildfires in California, Hurricane Ida, the freeze in Texas, and semiconductor shortages.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has developed a new Resilient Supply Chain and Shortages Prevention Program, with the aim of establishing a permanent device shortages program that will help ensure access to critical medical devices while reducing U.S. dependence on devices from other nations.3 Although these discussions appeared to be focused on short-term shortages, considering long-term (i.e., decades) resource risks also is important.The global medical devices market was valued at $432 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $628 billion by 2028, at a rate of increase of 5.4% from 2021 to 2028.4 This segment of healthcare requires enormous mining and energy demands, typically has a relatively short life span, and can be difficult to recycle, thereby resulting in a large carbon footprint and waste.The world's reliance on natural resources has continued to accelerate during the past two decades. In 2019, for the first time ever, the amount of material consumed by our global economy surpassed 100 billion metric tons, of which only 8.6% was cycled back into the economy.5 In The Sustainable Development Goals Report: 2020,6 the United Nations stated, “Urgent action is needed to decrease our reliance on raw materials and to increase recycling and ‘circular economy' approaches to reduce environmental pressure and impact.”According to Hagen,7 “If the global economy continues to grow at about 3.0% per year, we will consume as much energy and materials in the next ~30 years as we did cumulatively in the past 10,000.” As I will describe, this is unlikely to happen.Other industry shifts, such as transitioning to clean renewable energy and electric vehicles, will involve competition with the medical equipment industry for the same resources. Long development times for medical equipment will require us to be looking decades ahead to anticipate the market.Throughout the medical equipment life cycle, many opportunities exist to reduce energy and resource consumption while, in many cases, also reducing cost. This article will describe the “limits to growth” concept, resource depletion, and our current situation, as well as discuss the circular economy and its potential application to the management of medical equipment.In 1972, a book titled The Limits to Growth was published by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.8 Their work involved using computers to model several possible future scenarios. Limits to growth include both the material and energy that are extracted from the Earth and the capacity of the planet to absorb the pollutants that are generated as those materials and energy are used.In the “business-as-usual” (base) scenario shown in Figure 1, which originally appeared in The Limits to Growth, we can see that since 1900, the per-capita food and industrial output (gross domestic product) has increased dramatically alongside population and pollution.8 Also, during that time, we have depleted about half of our economically recoverable resources. As described in the next section, the remaining resources will be more difficult and costly to extract, which, according to this scenario, eventually will cause food and industrial output to decline, followed by pollution and population.The Limits to Growth study was not intended to be exact in its timing or to show what would happen after collapse. Rather, it sought to show the potential interrelationship among key variables and to illustrate that limits to growth do in fact exist. This year (2022) will be the 50th anniversary of the report, with the model it describes having been supported by 20-, 30-, and 40-year follow-up studies.Figure 2 shows a resource pyramid depicting the size and quality of our energy and mineral resources. This example uses oil for energy and copper for minerals, but the same principle applies to all nonrenewable energy and mineral resources. One hundred years ago, we were at the top of both pyramids. Today, however, much of our extraction is occurring at the bottom levels.The mining of mineral ores requires enormous energy, which only increases as the concentration decreases. Thus far, we have been able to increase the use of relatively inexpensive fossil fuels to keep up with it, but fossil fuels also are degrading and depleting at the same time. Although we will never run out of resources, a point will be reached where the cost to extract will exceed the value of the ore. At that point the resources will no longer be available and therefore effectively gone.9As the population and consumption of our resources continue to grow in the coming decades, it will become increasingly difficult not only to maintain products but also to improve them in the face of declining availability of mineral resources.10As described by Michaux et al.,11 “The current economic paradigm is that global resources are infinite and that there are no limits on growth.” Predictions for resource availability have, to a large part, been based on supply and demand rather than geology. If something is not available, the market will increase prices and drive further development. This concept has worked well for the last 200 years, but as we approach the limits to growth with depleted quality and quantity of resources, the law of supply and demand begins to erode. “The rules of industrialization and the sourcing of raw materials are changing into a new era of business model. Change is happening, whether we are ready for it or not,” said Michaux et al.It's not a matter of if, but when, certain nonrenewable resources will become uneconomical for mining. It won't be a sudden collapse of everything, but it will gradually affect segments of the supply chain much like the availability of semiconductors following the pandemic. It will take years to develop the processes, methods, and products to begin making equipment that can be fully recycled. As I understand it, it then takes on average seven years to develop and bring a medical device to market. If we want to continue to have resources available for medical equipment, then we need to make some changes now—we can't wait until we run out before we find solutions.In our traditional linear economy, nonrenewable resources are extracted to make “stuff.” When the stuff is no longer wanted, it is disposed of. In the circular economy, the goal is to reduce the amount of resources extracted using renewable energy and to recycle resources from unwanted stuff.The circular economy diagram shown in Figure 3 illustrates the ideal life cycle for medical equipment. The image displays biological materials on the left and technical materials (e.g., minerals) on the right.The circular economy involves three core elements and five enabling elements.12 The core elements that form the basis for successful implementation are to (1) prioritize regenerative resources, (2) stretch the lifetime, and (3) use waste as a resource. These core elements are made possible through the following enabling elements: (1) rethink the business model, (2) team up to create joint value, (3) design for the future, (4) incorporate digital technology, and (5) strengthen and advance knowledge.The technical information report, AAMI TIR65:2015, Sustainability of medical devices—Elements of a responsible product life cycle,13 is an excellent resource, though having been developed almost 10 years ago, it is not rigorous enough to address the needed changes. The AAMI Sustainability Committee is currently balloting whether TIR65 should be renewed and/or a standard developed. The best way to enable and ensure a successful transition to the circular economy is to develop a standard.What can we do as HTM departments and healthcare organizations? The following section describes opportunities to reduce resource consumption in medical equipment. Many of these solutions will also reduce expenses for organizations.In the acquisition and replacement of equipment, power consumption should be examined as part of the prepurchase evaluation. Inefficient old equipment should be replaced when possible. In addition, if appropriate, less power-consumptive technologies, or even manual equipment, can be considered.For equipment in use, evaluate the cost/benefit of the a

• openalex https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/8979081first seen 2026-08-02 18:35:18