How can the environmental sustainability of healthcare products be taken into account throughout their life cycle?

Healthcare product procurement accounts for around 50% of the French healthcare system's greenhouse gas emissions. This lesson learned from the publication of the Shift Project's work in November 2021 has been a catalyst within the healthcare system, accelerating the consideration and implementation of actions aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the healthcare system, before, during and after care. In addition to their carbon footprint, healthcare products have a wide range of environmental impacts, including on water, air and soil, throughout their entire life cycle.

Costs of purchase, maintenance, microbiological control, and reprocessing of a reusable duodenoscope.

The costs of reusable endoscope reprocessing have been evaluated, yet external validity of the findings remains challenging. The aim of this study was to assess the costs of purchase, maintenance, microbiological control, and reprocessing of a reusable duodenoscope per endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) in France. Study findings exclude the costs of infection, downtime due to breakdown, reprocessing single-use material disposal, and device disposal, all of which should also be considered.

Why and how can we improve patient and caregiver information for the proper use of their medical devices throughout the care pathway?

Information is generally a major pillar in the relationship of trust between the patient and their healthcare team. In the case of medical devices, which are operator-dependent and for which the proper "handling" of the device will directly affect its performance, information on the proper use becomes a major therapeutic issue. To do this, patients must have access to quality information about health products.

New European medical device regulation: How the French ecosystem should seize the opportunity of the EUDAMED and the UDI system, while overcoming the constraints thereof.

The European regulation governing the placing on the market of medical devices (MD) provides for the gradual and mandatory phasing-in, within the European Union, of a unique device identification (UDI) system and a European database (EUDAMED) aimed at improving traceability and transparency of the market. The deployment of these tools will have a significant impact on the stakeholders of the medical device world (companies, health institutions, healthcare professionals, competent authorities, etc.).