Another Benefit for Telehealth: It's Good for the Environment
One of the nation's largest health systems has found that its telehealth platform is not only helping patients and providers, but reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving trees.
Telehealth is often marketed for its benefits to the patient and clinician, but what about its effect on the environment?
One health system analyzed the impact that its connected health platform has on the world around us during the coronavirus pandemic, and found that virtual care not only reduces travel to and from the doctor’s office or hospital, but cuts down on gas use and emissions, thereby reducing the negative impact on our planet.
“We recognize the significant impacts virtual visits have had on our carbon footprint across the country,” Sister Mary Ellen Leciejewski, system vice president for environmental sustainability for Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, said in a press release issued on Earth Day last month. “Our virtual visits reduced greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to planting over 250,000 trees and removing more than 3,000 cars from roadways for an entire year. With virtual visits, healthcare is more accessible and convenient, green and sustainable.”
The company charted 1.5 million virtual visits between March 16, 202 and April 2, 2021 to more than 1,400 locations in 21 states, and found that those visits equate to 37,440,731 miles not travelled and 1,678,956 gallons of gas saved, for a monetary savings of $3.509 million. In terms of time spent in transit and in a waiting room or exam room, the company estimates that patients saved 923,276 hours by going online.
Furthermore, all that time not spent on the road reduced traffic congestion (and driver stress, for that matter) and resulted in 15,092 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions not coming out of the tailpipe, which in turn translates to roughly 18,490 acres of forest saved.
CommonSpirit was created in 2019 out of the merger of Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health, and is now the largest Catholic health system and second-largest non-profit in the country, with 142 hospitals. The health system emphasizes its commitment to healthier communities, with a broad range of charity care and community programs.
They’re one of several health systems and organizations looking to put a green spin on telehealth, with a focus on environmental benefits and improved lifestyle. In fact, providers and vendors have long touted the advantages of telehealth in reducing travel and the costs and stresses associated with it.
In 2017, the American Telemedicine Association launched a task force, organized by then-president Peter Yellowlees, to study how telemedicine might be affecting climate change and global warming. The effort was spurred by a study from the University of California at Davis – where Yellowlees is a professor of clinical psychiatry – that found that its telehealth program saved patients and clinicians 5 million miles of travel over 18 years, amounting to about nine years in travel time and $3 million in costs, and helped UC Davis reduce nearly 2,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, 50 metric tons of carbon monoxide, 3.7 metric tons of nitrogen oxides and 5.5 metric tons of volatile organic compounds.
“Telemedicine and health information technology help save time, energy, raw materials (such as paper and plastic), and fuel, thereby lowering the carbon footprint of the health industry,” Yellowlees wrote in a 2010 paper titled Telemedicine Can Make Healthcare Greener. “By implementing green practices, for instance, by engaging in carbon credit programs, the health industry could benefit financially as well as reduce its negative impact on the health of our planet.”
