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. 2024 May 16:12:1394095.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1394095. eCollection 2024.

The potential of virtual healthcare technologies to reduce healthcare services' carbon footprint

Kim Usher  1   2 , Jen Williams  1   2 , Debra Jackson  3
Affiliations

The potential of virtual healthcare technologies to reduce healthcare services' carbon footprint

Kim Usher et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the potential to reduce our carbon footprint especially by reducing travel. We aim to describe healthcare and health education services' contribution to the global climate emergency and identify the need for increased use of virtual health service delivery and undergraduate/postgraduate education to help reduce the impact of health service and health education delivery on the environment. Health care services, as one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions, must take steps to rapidly reduce their carbon footprint. Health services have unfortunately paid little attention to this issue until recently. Virtual healthcare and education have a valuable role in transition to a net carbon-zero outcome. Given the increasing use of and satisfaction with virtual health services such as telehealth, and the increase in virtual education opportunities, it is important that a concerted effort is undertaken to increase their use across health services and education in the future.

Keywords: carbon emissions; climate change; digital healthcare; planetary health; telehealth; virtual health education; virtual healthcare.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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