Implementation strategies for reducing carbon emissions in acute care: a scoping review protocol

This scoping review aims to characterize evidence on implementation strategies to reduce carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in acute care settings.

Decarbonizing health care sectors is important for the sustainability of health systems and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. While evidence on the environmental impacts of health care is growing, there is limited understanding of how interventions to reduce emissions are implemented and what strategies support health care adaptation to reduce emissions.

Articles published in English since 1999 will be included if they report on interventions or implementation strategies to reduce carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in acute care settings. Eligible studies may use quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods and involve any health care professional, staff, clinical specialty, or activity (eg, recycling, anesthesia, prescribing). Studies conducted outside acute care or lacking information related to reducing carbon dioxide equivalent emissions will be excluded.

This review will follow JBI scoping review methodology. MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Elsevier), Scopus, and CINAHL (EBSCOhost) will be searched for peer-reviewed articles on emissions reduction in health care. Data will be extracted, synthesized, and categorized using the Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change (ERIC) taxonomy of implementation strategies and the behavior change technique taxonomy. Results will be presented in tables, creating an inventory of intervention types and implementation strategies for reducing emissions in health care. This review will provide a comprehensive overview of strategies for reducing carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in acute care, contributing to efforts to decarbonize health care systems and support climate change mitigation.

OSF https://osf.io/e8d4r.