Virtual Doctor's Visits Help Healthcare Providers Go Greener.

"Virtual doctor's appointments are helping healthcare companies reduce carbon emissions, though sustainability is mostly seen as a side benefit of telehealth rather than its main driver.

The use of telehealth picked up considerably during the Covid-19 pandemic, with virtual visits increasing 38 times from their prepandemic levels and then largely stabilizing, according to 2021 figures provided by McKinsey.

At first the practice was seen mostly as a way to improve patient access and convenience while reducing costs, but as the trend stabilized, healthcare companies started viewing virtual consultations as an opportunity to improve their carbon footprint.

Telehealth can cut costs as some healthcare providers are willing to accept lower reimbursement rates since, for example, fewer personnel are employed or doctors can perform some consultations from home, said Cynthia Cox, vice president and program director on the Affordable Care Act at health policy researcher KFF.

The healthcare industry is responsible for about 5% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, of which the U.S. healthcare system alone accounts for one-quarter. The urgent round-the-clock nature of medical care means that there is a limit to how much emissions can be reduced.

Energy, food and water consumption in hospitals and other facilities, production of pharmaceuticals and chemicals, along with waste management are the biggest sources of carbon emissions for the American healthcare industry, according to a 2020 study cited by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Scope 3 emissions -- those in the supply chain beyond the operations and energy usage of the reporting units -- account for about four-fifths of the total greenhouse-gas emissions of the U.S. healthcare sector, according to the study. Similarly, in England, medicines, buildings, equipment and other supply-chain items generate most of the National Health Service's emissions, according to official NHS figures.

While some health providers had started sketching out sustainability strategies before the pandemic -- including, for example, using solar panels and energy from renewable sources -- the increased uptake in telemedicine made them realize that emissions also could be saved by avoiding transport to and from healthcare facilities.

Kaiser Permanente, one of the biggest nonprofit healthcare organizations in the U.S., started examining the environmental impact of driving to and from its 39 hospitals and 623 medical offices in 2016, but it was during the pandemic that both the benefits of telehealth and the possibility to reduce those emissions really crystallized.

Virtual care "has now created an expectation of our [patients] that they will have access, responses, information, and care virtually, that a lot of people didn't expect before," said Colin Cave, MD and medical director of external affairs, government relations and community health at Kaiser Permanente, Northwest.

In this sense, patient convenience emerged as the first and primary purpose of virtual visits, but it also led to different considerations. "We understand that climate is health, so it became apparent that there could also be an advantage with regards to the environment," Cave said.

Telehealth use is able to reduce Kaiser Permanente's carbon footprint by about 7,500 metric tons a year, according to the company. "It isn't huge, but it's something that we have the power to make work," Cave said.

Kaiser Permanente emits 800,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide yearly, mostly from electricity and natural gas used to keep facilities running, according to the company. The figureincludes Scope 3 emissions, it said.

In past years, the company has been trying to cut emissions by purchasing utility-scale electricity from renewable sources, installing solar arrays, improving building efficiency and buying carbon offsets, it said.

For BUPA, a U.K.-based provider of private health insurance and care, telehealth has emerged as an asset in the company's broader digitization strategy, which in turn is seen as a way to reduce Scope 3 emissions and eventually get to its goal of net-zero emissions by 2040.

The company has designed an app for teleconsultations that is able to show patients the carbon emissions avoided through that consultation. BUPA patients in Spain, where the app has been rolled out, were able to save about 6,655 net tons of carbon dioxide via their teleconsultations in 2020 and more than 8,000 net tons in 2022, the company said." [1]

1. Banking & Finance: Virtual Doctor's Visits Help Healthcare Providers Go Greener. Butini, Cecilia.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 03 Aug 2023: B.10.