Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia.
New England Virtual Health Network (NEViHN), Armidale, NSW, Australia.
Front Public Health. 2024 May 16;12:1394095. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1394095. eCollection 2024.
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the potential to reduce our carbon footprint especially by reducing travel. We aim to describe healthcare and health education services' contribution to the global climate emergency and identify the need for increased use of virtual health service delivery and undergraduate/postgraduate education to help reduce the impact of health service and health education delivery on the environment. Health care services, as one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions, must take steps to rapidly reduce their carbon footprint. Health services have unfortunately paid little attention to this issue until recently. Virtual healthcare and education have a valuable role in transition to a net carbon-zero outcome. Given the increasing use of and satisfaction with virtual health services such as telehealth, and the increase in virtual education opportunities, it is important that a concerted effort is undertaken to increase their use across health services and education in the future.
COVID-19 大流行表明，我们有可能减少碳足迹，特别是通过减少旅行。我们旨在描述医疗保健和健康教育服务对全球气候紧急情况的贡献，并确定需要更多地使用虚拟医疗服务交付和本科/研究生教育，以帮助减少医疗服务和健康教育交付对环境的影响。医疗保健服务是碳排放的最大贡献者之一，必须采取措施迅速减少碳足迹。直到最近，医疗服务部门才很少关注这个问题。虚拟医疗保健和教育在向净零碳排放结果过渡方面发挥着重要作用。鉴于远程医疗等虚拟医疗服务的使用和满意度不断提高，虚拟教育机会不断增加，未来重要的是要共同努力，增加这些服务在医疗服务和教育中的使用。
