Healthcare and sustainability are both important sectors around the world, and their intersection is gaining attention as healthcare operations significantly affect environmental outcomes. They deserve resources and support. We want to focus on keeping our planet healthy as much as we want to keep ourselves healthy. However, healthcare can cause challenges for sustainability. It can be difficult to prioritize the well-being of both the environment and everyone who’s living in it.
If you work in healthcare, it’s completely understandable you may not think too much about the environmental impacts of your day-to-day tasks as you help people on their wellness journey. The good news is that sustainability is becoming more and more of a discussion in the healthcare world. In 2022, 370 hospitals saved more than $190 million on sustainability initiatives.
There are ways that you could provide the best care possible to patients while acknowledging and learning about your role in sustainability. That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing come in handy.
Read on to learn about the top sustainability challenges the healthcare industry faces. You’ll also learn how SEO and content marketing can help you address them.
Healthcare sustainability challenges
There are quite a few sustainability challenges that the healthcare industry is currently facing. By learning about them, you can gain a better understanding of the ways healthcare is negatively impacting environmental well-being. You can also learn what needs to be addressed.
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High carbon footprint of healthcare operations
Greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere trap gas and increase the global temperature. According to a Harvard Medical School article, up to 5.2% of greenhouse gas emissions come from the healthcare systems. They leave a high carbon footprint that has a negative impact on climate change. Greenhouse gases can come from:
- Energy-intensive hospital operations
- Transportation
- Medical equipment manufacturing
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Excessive medical waste
There are many types of medical tools and equipment that can lead to significant waste. It can contribute to pollution and habitat destruction from improper waste disposal and management. A few examples include:
- Single-use plastics
- Electronic waste
- Overtreatment
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Water and energy inefficiency
There are large amounts of water and energy that are used by healthcare facilities on a daily basis. It’s not uncommon for these facilities to have outdated infrastructures. These outdated infrastructures can make it difficult for the healthcare systems to work efficiently. They can also lead to greenhouse gas emissions, polluted water and more.
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Lack of public awareness and engagement
A person’s health should always be their top priority. But people may not be thinking about how the healthcare they’re getting could be negatively impacting the environment. And that’s totally understandable. When people go to a hospital for a broken leg, they likely aren’t thinking about the environmental harm of what’s being used to help them.
Many people may also be unaware of the available sustainable healthcare practices that they could support.
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Using unsustainable supplies
It’s likely that many healthcare professionals don’t know that the supplies they use on a daily basis can have a negative impact on the environment before they order them. They also might not have researched how sustainable the supplies are across their full life cycle — from manufacturing to disposal.
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Limited internal staff and education on sustainability
Sustainability and healthcare can go hand in hand. But not all medical professionals understand that because they aren’t educated about it during their studies. They may not be given the structured training or learn the guidelines for environmentally responsible practices.
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Fragmented or missing sustainability reporting
Sustainability isn’t something that’s often tracked throughout healthcare facilities. There may not be centralized reporting to keep an eye on sustainability metrics, goals and performance.
How SEO & content marketing can address each challenge
At BURG+CO., we focus on being solution-focused. That’s why we’ve come up with a few ways that SEO and content marketing can be used to help you navigate sustainability challenges in healthcare.
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High carbon footprint
When you’re trying to take active steps to combat the high carbon footprint of your facility, you can try to educate and influence the behavior of your stakeholders. Use SEO and content to position your brand or organization as a thought leader and improve discoverability for partnerships who have similar environmental, social and governance beliefs.
Content approach — Try to create and publish informative blog posts, white papers and landing pages on your site about how healthcare organizations can decarbonize operations. A couple of examples include using renewable energy or creating new transportation initiatives.
SEO approach — Throughout your site, content and URLs, try to incorporate and optimize for sustainability-related keywords. Try to focus your strategies on getting to the top of the search engine results pages for keywords like “carbon neutral healthcare” or “green hospital practices.”
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Excessive medical waste
Medical waste can’t be completely avoided. But you can still try to promote waste reduction programs and responsible disposal to improve your sustainability in the long run. With SEO and content marketing, you can increase public engagement and showcase a responsible brand image.
Content approach — You can create content that provides information about excessive medical waste in an accessible way. For example, you can create explainer videos about proper medication disposal. Or you can make infographics that showcase the steps.
SEO approach — People often search particular, niche questions when they’re trying to figure out what to do about an issue, such as taking care of medical waste. That’s why you should create content that’s based on long-tail keywords, which are three words or longer. An example is creating a video for the keyword, “how to safely dispose of unused prescriptions.”
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Water and energy inefficiency
All the technology used in a healthcare facility requires effective energy systems. And water is needed for everything from the air conditioning to the patient room showers. But you can still focus on solutions and encourage institutional commitment through SEO and content. They can work as a way to boost B2B traffic from facility managers and sustainability consultants.
Content approach — You can create content that showcases the positive results that come from making changes to water and energy systems. Find healthcare facilities that have energy-saving retrofits or water recycling systems. Post interviews, either through video or blog format, with their managers to share their insight on the solutions.
SEO approach — You can create pillar pages on your site to convey your focus on water and energy sustainability while also educating others. You can create a content cluster for the related subtopics. For example, you can have one about LED lighting. This will showcase the relevance and authority of your site to the search engine algorithm.
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Lack of public awareness
One of the main goals of healthcare practices is to educate the public on relevant concerns. You can use storytelling as a way to gain empathy and encourage people to take action. By informing a public audience, you’re able to make them feel passionate about the cause. In turn, the public can then encourage institutions to improve their sustainability efforts.
Content approach — Use social media and blog posts as a way to spread awareness and education about healthcare sustainability. Try to include stories or statistics about the impact of unsustainable practices.
SEO approach — Use schema markup in featured snippets throughout your site’s content. It can help to enhance the visibility for terms like “why healthcare needs sustainability.” It helps you appeal to the algorithm and rank high on search engine results pages for people interested in the topic.
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Unsustainable procurement
You can make a difference by adjusting your procurement approach. With the right vendor partnerships and green procurement policies throughout your facility, you can prioritize using sustainable tools and equipment that don’t sacrifice efficiency. The goal is to attract the attention of environmentally conscious suppliers while also strengthening the integrity of your procurement process.
Content approach — In order to showcase how achievable it was to have sustainable procurement, you can shine a light on those who make it a reality. Create content that discusses eco-friendly vendors. You can also publish interviews with supply chain leaders to spread their insight.
SEO approach — Try to incorporate relevant keywords into your site, content and URLs, such as “sustainable medical supply chain” or “green healthcare procurement.” By optimizing for these commercial-focused keywords, you’re showing your value and credibility to appeal to the algorithm.
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Lack of staff training
Internal education is an important step to public awareness of sustainability challenges. If your team knows what they can do to help, then they can present those ideas to others. Try to make an effort to include sustainability education as part of onboarding and ongoing professional development. You can create eco-friendly protocols among staff and empower them as green champions.
Content approach — Create a content hub on your site that puts all educational resources into one place. It can include articles, quizzes and micro-learning videos. It shows your thorough understanding of sustainability topics and your commitment to it.
SEO approach — There are a few different ways that you can use SEO to boost the visibility and engagement of your educational hub, including:
- Tagging
- Metadata
- Search logs
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Fragmented sustainability reporting
Reporting and tracking is essential for efficiency in all aspects of a healthcare facility, including sustainability. With digital publication of your efforts, you can improve transparency and boost your reputation. You’re able to build your credibility in the eyes of investors, partners and patients, particularly those who prioritize corporate responsibility and accountability.
Content approach — Be open and proud of your sustainability efforts by publishing the reports for everyone to see. Publish annual or quarterly sustainability reports in a format that’s accessible and easy to scan. You should include summary blogs and data visualization to optimize comprehension and value for users.
SEO approach — For successful indexing by the search engine algorithm, be sure to include accessible URLs, structured data and alt text to provide the most context possible for relevant keywords.
Want to prioritize sustainability in healthcare on your website? BURG+CO. can help
Sustainability is all about thinking long-term about the good of the environment by determining what changes can be made right now. When you’re in healthcare, sustainability doesn’t need to be thrown to the wayside in favor of wellness. At BURG+CO., we’ll use the power of search engine optimization and content marketing to help you be more environmentally conscious in your healthcare facilities while also educating others.
Our team has years of experience in helping healthcare brands improve their digital presence to attract new patients and retain existing ones. If you’re looking to perform better in search engine results and attract more potential patients to your site, we’re ready to talk to you to see how we can help.
Contact our team today for more information about our digital marketing services or to schedule a complimentary consultation.