Telehealth for Addressing Climate Change: A Position Statement

Summary

The health sector is a major contributor to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions. Telehealth, the delivery of healthcare services remotely through communication technologies is on the rise globally as evidenced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we express our opinion through a position statement of how telehealth can be effectively adopted for addressing climate change mitigation using a systems thinking approach.

We conducted a narrative review of the literature and an online modified Delphi method among the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Telehealth Working Group members to develop a set of themes for an evidenced based position statement on the adoption of telehealth for climate change.

Telehealth has demonstrated success in providing effective healthcare services through teleconsulting and remote monitoring. It has also shown to help reduce carbon dioxide equivalent gas emissions due to reduced travel since it required fewer in-person visits. At the same time, large energy consumption for complex devices and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) based data processing applications, e-waste generation from device lifecycle, the potentially negative impact on the quality of care provided with resultant increase in health system encounters undermine the benefits of telehealth. Equity, privacy and security issues are other challenges that need to be considered.

It is possible to integrate telehealth as an integral component of climate change mitigation efforts through a systems thinking approach. The services should be resilient to climate change events, and support mitigation efforts through promotion, prevention, monitoring, management and governance activities. More research is needed to substantiate and investigate this model of healthcare.