Cancer patients often prefer the convenience of video visits to in-person medical visits. A new study reveals another benefit – telehealth reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
By moving all non-in-person oncology visits online and allowing patients to have blood drawn and other tests and procedures performed at clinics closer to their homes, the researchers estimated they could reduce carbon dioxide emissions. nationwide created as a result of cancer. care by 33%, the study published on Monday in JAMA Oncology found.
“Telemedical and decentralized cancer care provides a large relative reduction in emissions,” said lead author Dr. Andrew Hantel, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “It’s potentially a downstream gain for human health and planetary health.”
Health care generated 8.5% of US greenhouse gas emissions in 2018, previous studies show. A growing number of health care providers see the climate crisis as a health crisis. They are working to reduce operating room waste, find solutions like more asthma-friendly inhalers, and generally educate the medical community about the need to conserve resources.
The new study is “a fantastic opener to lend credence to the whole idea that health care is a significant emitter of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Dr. Nithya Ramnath, a professor of medicine and oncology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Veterans Administration Health Care System.
“As a society, we need to start thinking about everything that can affect the climate, and the health care system should not be immune to it,” said Ramnath, who was not involved in the study.
It included nearly 124,000 people receiving cancer care at Dana-Farber in Boston and its satellites in five New England states between May 2015 and December 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced many oncology visits to be conducted by video and phone starting by March 2020, researchers estimated an 81% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. The reduction included fewer miles traveled, as well as less medical waste, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, and the like.
The researchers then calculated what pre-pandemic greenhouse gas emission levels might have been if telemedicine had been deployed and extrapolated to the US population. They calculated that telehealth and the use of oncology clinics closer to people’s homes could prevent a third of emissions.
Until the pandemic, oncology was assumed to require in-person tests and procedures that would minimize the ability to use telemedicine.
“Everybody thought you always had to do all that stuff in person,” Dana-Farber’s Hantel said. But the natural experiment of the pandemic proved that parts of oncology care could be done closer to home and at a distance.
Health care providers have debated the pros and cons of telehealth, whether it improves access or worsens health care disparities, he said.
“We know that telehealth is not universally good, as many people experienced in the pandemic,” Hantel said. “Will the benefit of reducing emissions, plus all the other things that we know telehealth can probably do good for patients, tip the scales a little bit against some of the harm?”
“Every little thing we do in terms of climate change adds up,” he said.
Some of Ramnath’s patients, especially those who are less tech-savvy, prefer to see him in person, she said. But many of them enjoy connecting via video from the comfort of their homes.
“I see their significant others. I see their dog or cat and have a nice social conversation with them,” said Ramnath.
The average patient travel distance from Dana-Farber in the study was 7.1 miles, compared with 8.9 miles in the U.S.
But Ramnath’s patients often drive up to 50 miles to see her in her Ann Arbor office. Video visits save cancer patients, and often their caregivers, the time it takes to drive, in addition to travel and childcare expenses.
Ramnath also likes telehealth because it allows her to reduce the wait time to see new patients who are anxious to talk to her as soon as possible after being diagnosed with cancer.
It has also looked at other ways that oncology can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. In a study published this month in Lancet Oncology, Ramnath and her colleagues found that they could administer immunotherapy every six weeks, instead of every three weeks, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 24%.
“Intuitively, we think, why would a remedy result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions?” she asked. “Because everything that goes along with that drug — the building, the air conditioning, the nursing time, the vials, the papers, the injectables, all the medical equipment, they contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases.”
Ronnie Cohen is a San Francisco Bay Area journalist focused on health and social justice issues.
Copyright 2024 NPR
#reduce #climate #impact #health #care #rise #telehealth
Image Source : www.wusf.org