Towards a green hospital approach in Oman: A case study of quantifying an environmental impact.

INTRODUCTION: The environmental impact of hospitals and healthcare providers practices is substantial, although often unnoticed and infrequently tracked. A green and healthy hospital is one that promotes public health by continuously monitoring and reducing its environmental impact. METHODS: We adopted a descriptive case study design with a multi-dimensional evaluation and monitoring of carbon emission equivalence (CO2e) using two examples from a tertiary care hospital practice in Oman. One example (1) was related to inhalation anaesthetic gases (IAG) consumption and the second example (2) was related to estimation of telemedicine clinics (TMCs) CO2e travel-related savings. RESULTS: The cumulative consumption of three different (1) IAG over three years (2019, 2020, 2021) was generated with estimated CO2e for each year for sevoflurane, isoflurane and desflurane. Desflurane had the lowest consumption with a yearly cumulative consumption of 6000 mL, 1500 mL, and 3000 mL for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. The (2) TMCs during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic travel related CO2e savings were in the range of 12.65-3483.1 tonnes. In the second year of launching this service it doubled to a range of 24-6610.5 tonnes of CO2e savings. CONCLUSION: A green and healthy hospital approach of tracking and monitoring environmental impact of healthcare providers practices is critical for health planning and management of the environmental policy. This case study illustrated the importance of closely tracking hospital-based practices from an environmental perspective towards a green hospital approach.

Agile Teams and Lean Methods in a Tertiary Care Hospital During COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objectives: To share the experience of Agile Teams using Lean Method to facilitate improvement projects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A tertiary hospital in Oman mobilized agile teams using lean methods to streamline the workflow during the early stages of COVID-19 pandemic in year 2020. Results: The collaborative network generated by the agile teams increased interdepartmental engagement within the hospital and trimmed workflows, thus improving patient care despite the pandemic. Conclusions: Agile teams using lean methods demonstrably enhance collaboration and efficiency in healthcare, leading to improved patient care.

Oman's COVID-19 publication trends: A cross-sectional bibliometric study.

Public health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic led researchers and clinicians to stretch their capacities in conducting, writing, reviewing, and publishing a wealth of pandemic-related research. Oman scholars, researchers, and clinicians are no different in their quest for rapid dissemination of relevant scientific knowledge, which is of paramount importance nationally and internationally. Given the intense international interest in COVID-19 research. The study aim is to describe the COVID-19 research output in Oman in relation to publication type, journal impact factor, collaboration, author affiliation and compared it with national scholarly output over the decade. Study Design: We carried out a bibliometric cross-sectional study. Methods: We included all Oman COVID-19 publications for the period February 14 and 25, February 2021. Data retrieved using search engines PubMed, Google Scholar and Directory of Open Access Journals. Results: The COVID-19 publications search generated 210 articles. There were 36.7% review articles and 30% original articles. Of note, 2.4% randomized controlled trials articles were produced during the search period, 1.4% systematic and meta-analysis articles. The 85.7% of the publications were in journals with defined impact factor (IF) and 89.4% of articles with IF < 5. There was 53.8% international collaboration. Conclusion: The need to increase research published in journals with high impact factors and there was a high international collaboration in reviews and report articles, which may require building national research capacity.