Securing a healthy life cycle of digital healthcare

The use of digital healthcare devices is booming. This may be good news for patients, but less encouraging to the environment and the consumption of rare raw materials. New CBS research helps to deal with this challenge.

By CBS Executive Education

Who wants to stay long in hospital? The majority would most likely prefer to go home and have our health monitored by a smart device and only return to the doctor in case an alarm is triggered.

A smart wearable sensor is an example of the digital healthcare devices expected to become much more prevalent in near future. Researchers and industry partners behind a European research project, DiCE, expect an exponentially increase in the use of these devices in the next decade.

83 million units of medical wearables were available on the European market in 2020, and the expected annual global growth rate could be as much as 20 percent by 2027.

This may be good for patients but challenging for the environment. Not least as wearable sensors are single use. So, what will happen to them once they have been discarded? Most likely, according to the researchers in the project, the majority will end up in a landfill or an incinerator, which means that the plastic, metal, and rare raw materials used to produce them will be lost permanently.

For the benefit of patients, the healthcare sector, and the environment

To build a more sustainable future, twenty partners from the manufacturing industry, research institutions, and the recycling sectors have come together in the project, ‘Digital Health in the Circular Economy (DiCE)’, which are striving to find ways to re-use, refurbish and recycle different sorts of digital health devices.

CBS is represented by Christiane Lehrer and Attila Márton from the Department of Digitalization as well as Andreas Wieland from the Department of Operations Management.

“It is a project that can really have a positive impact in the world – for the benefit of patients, the healthcare sector, and the environment. To me personally, it feels great to contribute academic knowledge and have it applied in the industry and society,” says Christiane Lehrer.

She is exploring how consumers can get in the loop of recycling the devices. How they can become motivated to return the wearable sensors and other smart technology devices once they do not need them anymore.

Christiane Lehrer explains: In home care settings, wearable devices like biosensor patches and On Body Drug Delivery Systems (OBDS) show how digital health technology can become more sustainable. These small devices are worn on the skin-biosensor patches and track things like heart rate, temperature, or movement, while OBDS devices deliver medication directly under the skin over time.

"Today, such devices are often made for single use and then thrown away. However, the DiCE project aims to show that with proper take-back schemes, patients could return used devices to the manufacturer for safe processing and reuse instead of disposal, ending up as electronic waste," says Christiane Lehrer.

A similar shift is possible in hospitals, where certain types of single-use surgical instruments or devices like ECG lead sets can be successfully reprocessed and used again, achieving significant savings in both costs and carbon emissions.

"Together, these examples show that reuse and refurbishment are not just ambitious ideas, but realistic strategies that can deliver measurable environmental, economic, and clinical benefits," concludes Christiane Lehrer.

Smart people solving wicked problems

Attila Márton is developing system models of the recycling process of healthcare devices to investigate to which degree various solutions are sustainable or not.

“This is a great project, because so many smart people come together to solve wicked problems. Working with the healthcare sector there are no quick solutions because you cannot recycle everything the same way as with other products. There are, for example, possible biohazards, data protection issues, and the fact that the ‘consumer’ is not well also constitutes a challenge. So you may solve one problem but end up creating a new one. We strive to get to the root of them all,” says Márton.

Andreas Wieland is already working on a literature review to uncover what is already known about the recycling of healthcare devices.

“Unfortunately, we do not have much research on this specific issue. But maybe we can learn from research performed on digital wearables in the fitness industry. Here, we have research based on interviews with companies, healthcare professionals and consumers,” Andreas adds.

Read more about Digital Health in the Circular Economy (DICE) and follow the project on LinkedIn.

Leading with nature: how?

Responsible ownership is the key to sustainability in business

How Underestimating Personal Carbon Footprint Undermines Effective Climate Policies

Green public leadership should be in focus if countries are to reach climate goals

Is ESG board alignment too much to ask?

Did you find this content interesting? Sign up for our newsletter and gain access to more of our research findings and events.

With the world’s grand challenges awaiting us, we need to continuously evolve, gain new knowledge and insights, and upskill.

Dive into a world of knowledge by signing up below. You will get:

Personal event invitations
Pertinent research-based insights on business and society
Information about the next intakes of our Executive Education programmes and courses

Full-Time MBA

Elevate your career with a triple-accredited one-year Full-time MBA programme built around sustainability, authenticity and innovation.

Learn more

ESG and sustainability reporting

Today, companies must meet significant international requirements to report their impact on the world around them. It is therefore essential for companies to understand and implement these requirements to avoid unintended consequences. This course is taught in Danish 🇩🇰

Learn more

Master of Business Development

The degree for those who are passionate about creating new, innovative solutions and want to take responsibility for elevating and developing the business - for those who want more.

Learn more

Sustainable Transformation & Circular Economy

This course gives you an overview of the current development within sustainability when it comes to connections in supply chains. You will learn about logistics, purchasing methods and tools to implement circularity.

Learn more

Securing a healthy life cycle of digital healthcare

Keep reading

Your gateway to more knowledge

Keep learning