Nissinen Ari, Pitkänen Atte, Barchuk Anton, Hosseinian Aida, Johansson Annika, Kaisti Matti, Karvonen Jaakko, Marttinen Pekka, Moen Hans, Peltola Emilia, Sokka Laura, A O Tikkinen Kari
Climate Solutions Unit, Finnish Environment Institute (Syke), Helsinki, Finland.
Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
Digit Health. 2025 Aug 25;11:20552076251364666. doi: 10.1177/20552076251364666. eCollection 2025 Jan-Dec.
The rapid digitalization of healthcare has implications for its carbon footprint. The goal of this scoping review was to identify how digitalization is proceeding in healthcare and the mechanisms through which it can affect the climate impacts of healthcare.
The scoping review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines and utilized the databases Web of Science and PubMed to identify literature on the climate impacts of digitalization in healthcare. The literature search identified 32 relevant studies. In addition, diagnostics, overdiagnosis, self-tracking technologies, and artificial intelligence (AI) were identified as key topics not sufficiently represented in the literature review, and related articles were added into the material.
Most carbon footprint analyses focused on telemedicine solutions, but research topics also included health informatics, education, diagnoses, overdiagnosis, treatments, medical appliances, robotics, and AI. Regarding telemedicine, the carbon footprint of the virtual consultations ranged between 0·005 and 3 kgCO2e, while the in-person healthcare clinic visits ranged between 0·57 and 178 kgCO2e depending on the mode of transport used, the difference in the carbon footprint being 79-99%. Although the transparency of carbon footprint analyses was often low, system boundaries were often different, and the evidence for digitalization decreasing or increasing climate impacts was limited.
The findings highlight the need for future research on these topics and that leadership and setting strategic goals in particular were missing in the literature. Our scoping review also presents a framework for digitalization-related topics and means for advancing a lower carbon footprint in healthcare.
医疗保健的快速数字化对其碳足迹有影响。本范围综述的目的是确定医疗保健领域数字化的进展情况以及它影响医疗保健气候影响的机制。
本范围综述按照PRISMA指南进行，利用科学网和PubMed数据库来识别关于医疗保健数字化气候影响的文献。文献检索确定了32项相关研究。此外，诊断、过度诊断、自我追踪技术和人工智能（AI）被确定为在文献综述中未得到充分体现的关键主题，并将相关文章纳入材料中。
大多数碳足迹分析集中在远程医疗解决方案上，但研究主题还包括健康信息学、教育、诊断、过度诊断、治疗、医疗设备、机器人技术和人工智能。关于远程医疗，虚拟会诊的碳足迹在0.005至3千克二氧化碳当量之间，而亲自到医疗诊所就诊的碳足迹根据所使用的交通方式在0.57至178千克二氧化碳当量之间，碳足迹差异为79 - 99%。尽管碳足迹分析的透明度通常较低，系统边界往往不同，且数字化减少或增加气候影响的证据有限。
研究结果突出了未来对这些主题进行研究的必要性，且文献中尤其缺乏领导力和设定战略目标的内容。我们的范围综述还提出了一个与数字化相关主题的框架以及在医疗保健领域推进降低碳足迹的方法。
