Virtual consultations for skin lesion assessment reduce carbon footprint compared to in-person reviews.

IF 1.6 4区医学 Q2 MEDICINE, GENERAL & INTERNAL Australian Journal of General Practice Pub Date : 2024-08-01 DOI:10.31128/AJGP-08-23-6937

Leah Jones, Karen Koch, Amanda Oakley

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Abstract

Background and objectives: Climate change is one of the biggest threats to the healthcare sector. In addition, healthcare contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Virtual consultations are a growing tool to assess patients. The carbon emissions from virtual consultations have the potential to be much smaller than in-person consultations, predominantly through reduced transportation. This study assesses the carbon footprint of general practitioner referrals for skin lesions evaluated by a store-and-forward teledermatology service compared to an estimated equivalent in-person review.

Method: The carbon footprint of virtual consultations for skin lesions was compared to estimated equivalent in-person reviews based on the average transportation modalities in New Zealand.

Results: Virtual consultations for 484 patients resulted in an average saving of 48 km and 11.17 kg carbon dioxide equivalent per consultation compared to equivalent in-person review.

Discussion: This study encourages the use of store-and-forward skin lesion assessment as a way of reducing carbon emissions in the healthcare sector.

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与面对面审查相比，虚拟皮肤病变评估咨询可减少碳足迹。

背景和目标：气候变化是医疗保健行业面临的最大威胁之一。此外，医疗保健也是温室气体排放的重要来源。虚拟会诊是一种不断发展的评估病人的工具。虚拟会诊的碳排放量有可能比面对面会诊少得多，主要是通过减少交通。本研究评估了全科医生转诊皮肤病患者时，通过存储转发式远程皮肤病学服务评估皮肤病变的碳足迹，并与估计的同等当面复查进行了比较：方法：根据新西兰的平均交通方式，将皮损虚拟会诊的碳足迹与估计的等效当面复查进行比较：结果：为 484 名患者提供虚拟会诊与等效的亲自复查相比，每次会诊平均节省 48 千米和 11.17 千克二氧化碳当量：讨论：本研究鼓励使用存储转发皮损评估作为医疗保健行业减少碳排放的一种方式。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Australian Journal of General Practice Medicine-Family Practice

CiteScore

2.80

自引率

4.50%

发文量

284

期刊介绍： The Australian Journal of General Practice (AJGP) aims to provide relevant, evidence-based, clearly articulated information to Australian general practitioners (GPs) to assist them in providing the highest quality patient care, applicable to the varied geographic and social contexts in which GPs work and to all GP roles as clinician, researcher, educator, practice team member and opinion leader. All articles are subject to peer review before they are accepted for publication.