University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Acad Psychiatry. 2022 Oct;46(5):569-573. doi: 10.1007/s40596-022-01698-x. Epub 2022 Aug 23.
Academic and organizational leaders in psychiatry and all other medical fields are negatively impacted by climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a rapid shift to the use of more telehealth by behavioral health clinicians. The purpose of this study was to estimate the reduction of patients' greenhouse gas emissions during this rapid shift at one academic psychiatry institution.
The authors extracted data associated with all outpatient visits to all 26 psychiatry clinics from March 16, 2020, to December 31, 2020. Once the patients' travel miles saved by confirmed virtual visits were calculated, the authors used the standard ratio from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to calculate the total quantity of CO that would be emitted if the visits had occurred in person.
During the study period, a total of 47,582 outpatient behavioral health visits with 3975 unique patients were completed. The majority of these departmental visits were telehealth (85%), with most of the telehealth visits conducted using real-time audio-video platforms (75.7%). Subtracting emissions from patient technology during telehealth visits from the estimated patient transport values produced a net savings of greenhouse gas emissions of 867,011 kg CO. This amount is equal to the greenhouse gas emissions from 189 passenger vehicles driven for 1 year according to the EPA.
This study shows that converting in person, face-to-face behavioral health visits to telehealth has the potential to increase both energy efficiency and conservation through a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions due to reduced patient travel. If these values were extrapolated to the total adult US population who have visits for behavioral health reasons, we estimate that conversion to virtual visits could save approximately 830,000 metric tons of CO annually. Organizational leaders should consider these societal benefits when making decisions regarding development and support of telehealth.
精神病学和所有其他医学领域的学术和组织领袖都受到气候变化的负面影响。COVID-19 大流行促使行为健康临床医生迅速转向更多使用远程医疗。本研究的目的是估计在一所学术精神病学机构，这种快速转变期间患者温室气体排放量的减少。
作者从 2020 年 3 月 16 日至 2020 年 12 月 31 日提取了所有 26 个精神病诊所的所有门诊就诊相关数据。一旦计算出确认虚拟就诊中患者节省的旅行里程，作者就使用美国环境保护署（EPA）的标准比例来计算如果这些就诊是亲自进行，将会排放的 CO 总量。
在研究期间，共完成了 47582 次门诊行为健康就诊，涉及 3975 名独特患者。这些部门就诊大多是远程医疗（85%），其中大多数远程医疗就诊是使用实时音频-视频平台进行的（75.7%）。从远程医疗就诊中减去患者技术的排放量和估计的患者交通价值，产生了 867011 千克 CO 的温室气体排放净节省。根据 EPA 的数据，这相当于 189 辆乘用车行驶 1 年的温室气体排放量。
本研究表明，将面对面的行为健康就诊转换为远程医疗，通过减少患者旅行带来的温室气体排放，有可能提高能源效率和节约。如果将这些数值推广到因行为健康原因就诊的美国成年人总人口，我们估计转换为虚拟就诊每年可节省约 83 万吨 CO。在做出有关远程医疗开发和支持的决策时，组织领导者应考虑到这些社会效益。
