How Telehealth is Reducing Healthcare’s Carbon Footprint

Guest post by Stephen Dean, Co-Founder of Keona Health

Nobody likes going to the doctor’s office. It’s time consuming. Appointments are usually scheduled right in the middle of the workday, and they often necessitate travel by car or public transport. A study conducted at the University of California, Davis, found that the average patient travels the equivalent of 28.3 kilometres to an appointment, the equivalent of 35 minutes roundtrip.

How Telehealth is Reducing Healthcare’s Carbon Footprint

In short, it’s a big inconvenience. And the associated frustration patients feel is only exacerbated when they’re feeling ill, or have to undergo unpleasant procedures once they get there, like blood draws or vaccinations.

And the planet doesn’t much like a doctor’s visit either. These patient commutes contribute significantly to climate change through vehicle emissions. On top of that, healthcare practices that accommodate large inflows and outflows of patients day-to-day have correspondingly high rates of energy consumption.

This is where one of the silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic comes into play. The global healthcare industry saw a massive increase in digital telehealth options during this unprecedented public health emergency. The initial reasoning behind this shift was to protect healthcare workers and patients from unnecessary exposure to the virus, as healthcare centres were one of the main vectors for its spread.

Now, three years later, digital telehealth services are increasingly becoming the norm. Analysis by McKinsey found that telehealth appointments have increased 38-fold from their pre-COVID levels. As these trends continue, the benefits to the environment will be significant.

And with more than 700 digital healthcare providers and more than 90,000 medtech and biopharma workers, Ireland is poised to become a global leader in telehealth services. Its digital health segment is estimated to grow at over 17.4 percent between now and 2027. By then, it’s expected to be a national industry worth €426 billion.

But before exploring how Irish healthcare services can capitalize on this moment in eco-friendly and patient-centric ways, let’s first dive into the specifics of the healthcare industry’s environmental impact.

Healthcare’s carbon footprint

The carbon impact of the healthcare industry is divided into two realms: provider consumption and patient consumption. Provider consumption generally refers to a healthcare centre’s electricity consumption, as these facilities are often required to continuously run critical medical equipment and maintain a comfortable environment for patients.

Clearly, healthcare institutions can gobble up an immense amount of electricity, with some hospitals consuming as much power as a small town. In fact, according to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, healthcare accounts for roughly 19 percent of industrial energy consumption nationwide.

Again, the lion’s share of patient consumption lies in the energy involved in the commute to and from treatment. A study completed in 2021 at the University of Cambridge found, for example, that the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) was responsible for roughly 25 megatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2019. And about 10 percent of that total, or 2.5 megatonnes of CO2, was attributable to patient travel.

In short, healthcare’s carbon footprint is significant, but there are opportunities to mitigate its environmental impact. And expanding telehealth offerings is one of the easier ways for providers to achieve this.

How telehealth can help

Countries and regions with populations much larger than Ireland’s have managed to deploy successful telehealth offerings. California’s statewide university health system, for example, serves close to 40 million people – that’s nearly eight times the population of Ireland. Between January 2020 and December 2021, the clinics in the University of California’s health system treated close to 16.8 million people on an outpatient basis; and of those, about 18 percent were telehealth visits.

That 18 percent eliminated the equivalent of about 86 million commute kilometres, or 113 round trips from the Earth to the moon. It also saved a combined total of 204 years of travel time and more than €30 million in travel costs. Consider that the average passenger vehicle produces about 400 grams of CO2 per mile. Taking into account the mileage savings introduced by the University of California health system’s telehealth offerings, that’s about 21.5 million kilograms of CO2 that didn’t get pumped into the atmosphere over a two year period.

Now, what would a reduction in daily, in-office patient headcount mean for the average healthcare practice’s carbon footprint? Let’s take a look at another example from California’s crowded healthcare landscape – because, surely, if it works in the new Dublin (Dublin, California, that is), it can work in the old.

In Palo Alto, home to Stanford University, researchers working on a joint study identified a 36 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions produced by the school’s health system from 2019 to 2021 – in part attributable to boosted telehealth offerings. And interestingly enough, this occurred during a 13 percent increase in clinic visits overall. By offering telehealth appointments, Stanford’s health system avoided approximately 17,000 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2021.

Maintaining quality of care

The environmental benefits of telehealth are clear. But are there benefits to the patient beyond avoiding long commutes? If healthcare practices manage the transition to telehealth properly, the answer is a resounding yes. Healthcare providers can adopt telehealth services while maintaining or even enhancing the quality of patient care by implementing several key strategies.

First, they should adopt a user-friendly telehealth platform, friendly to both patients and providers alike. Practices should invest in reliable technology that offers clear audio and video, intuitive interfaces, and robust security measures to protect patient privacy. Comprehensive training for both healthcare professionals and instructional resources for patients on using the platform can effectively minimize technical issues and boost confidence in the virtual care experience.

Improving telehealth user experience isn’t just about pretty interfaces and navigable features, though. Doing so promotes a range of benefits that contribute to improved healthcare delivery overall. Telehealth enhances accessibility, particularly for individuals in remote or underserved areas, by overcoming geographical barriers and providing them with direct access to medical expertise.

Telehealth also increases healthcare efficiency by integrating other processes, like appointment scheduling; reducing no-shows; and enabling healthcare providers to manage a larger patient population. It also helps alleviate the everyday burden on healthcare facilities, freeing up resources for more critical cases.

Finally, and perhaps most critically, telehealth can improve continuity of care by providing a mechanism for regular remote check-ins and monitoring, leading to better management of chronic conditions and early detection of new health issues. This is all enabled by telehealth’s digital nature, as it allows for secure data storage, electronic prescription management, and real-time collaboration among healthcare professionals, tailoring patient care and reducing administrative overhead.

Final thoughts

As healthcare providers around the world begin to recognize the environmental benefits of telehealth, and incorporate telehealth offerings on a widening scale, opportunities for Ireland to capitalize on this trend will grow too.

By leveraging its robust digital infrastructure and skilled workforce in both the health and technology sectors, Ireland can position itself as a hub for telehealth expertise. And in doing so, it can play a vital role not just in the critical care of human patients, but in the care of the planet they live on.

By Stephen Dean, Co-Founder of Keona Health, a health desk that makes omnichannel patient access fast and simple.

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