Environmental Sustainability of a Televisit Process: Definition of Parameters and Preliminary Results

Healthcare sector has a significant impact on the environment. While telemedicine techniques could be a solution to increase its sustainability, the methods for a quantitative evaluation are poorly applied and often generate a partial assessment. Therefore, the main aim of the present research is the definition of a methodology for a preliminary quantification of the environmental impact generated by the process to perform a televisit. The methodology has been structured in 4 phases: process identification, impacts detection, data elaboration and results analysis. A real case study was performed including follow-up televisits for cardiopathic patients. After having defined the setting of the study, a list of tasks was prepared. For each task physical wastes, devices energy consumption, telecommunications and transportation were investigated. Equivalent CO2 (CO2 eq) was calculated involving sources from studies in literature and official websites. Although televisit reduces the impacts caused by patient travel, the use of telecommunications during supporting activities caused a significant amount of CO2 eq. Therefore, a complete assessment has to include the entire process of televisit. Despite the average input data, the methodology offers a base that could be improved with other impact indicators.