Impact on the reduction of CO2 emissions due to the use of telemedicine

Abstract

Digital health can reduce CO₂ emissions thanks to telemedicine and access to digital test results and medical reports. However, the environmental impact of digital health activity is not well known. Here, we show that telemedicine reduces CO₂ emissions. We found a net total of 6,655 tons of CO₂ emissions decrease through a reduction in patient travel to surgeries and medical clinics thanks to the alternatives of digital appointments and digital access to test results and medical reports, which avoid the need to travel to a clinic for a face-to-face visit or to pick up printed results or reports. During 2020, a total of 640,122 digital appointments were carried out by the health care company, which avoided 1,957 net tons of CO₂ emissions, while patients downloaded 3,064,646 digital medical reports through the company portal, which avoided an additional 4,698 net tons of CO₂ emissions. Our results demonstrate how digital appointments and digital reports, reduce CO₂ emissions by reducing the need for patient travel.

Figure 1

Number of appointments and CO₂ emissions avoided. Evolution of the number of face-to-face and digital appointments made monthly during 2020. The yellow line shows the monthly CO₂ emissions avoided, resulting from multiplying the number of digital appointments by the average savings of 3.057 kg of CO₂ for every digital appointment.

Figure 2

Calculation of carbon savings of performing a visit online. The net carbon savings of performing a visit online were calculated by summing the carbon savings derived from the avoided patient travel and document printing and subtracting the videoconferencing emissions.