How telemedicine helps

doi:10.1136/bmj.39402.471863.BE

BMJ 2007;335:1060 (24 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.39402.471863.BE

Letters

Reducing your carbon footprint

How telemedicine helps

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Last year Stott and Godlee asked what we as health professionalscan do about climate change.¹ Traditional medical practice generatesconsiderable carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gasesthrough travel. Yet many medical interactions can be deliveredby telephone, videoconferencing, or email (telemedicine) aseffectively as face to face. The balance between environmentalbenefits (and costs) of telemedicine is being examined in anew area of research—environmental e-health (R E Scottet al, sixth annual Canadian Society of Telehealth conference,Halifax, Nova Scotia, October 2003).

Three examples show how doctors can reduce their carbon footprint.A telepaediatric service in Queensland, Australia, providesa broad range of specialist services to children living remotely.²Telemedicine is used to manage 17% of paediatric outpatientswith burns. Over six years, 1000 videoconference consultationseliminated about 1.4 million km of patient travel,³ which reducedCO₂ emissions by 39 tonnes each year. If the analysis . . . [Full text of this article]

Anthony C Smith, senior research fellow¹, Victor Patterson, consultant neurologist², Richard E Scott, associate professor³

¹ Centre for Online Health, University of Queensland, Qld 4029, Australia, ² Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast BT12 6BA, ³ Global e-Health Research and Training Programme, Health Innovation and Information Technology Centre, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 4N1

a.smith@pobox.com

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What should we do about climate change?: Health professionals need to act now, collectively and individually: Robin Stott and Fiona Godlee
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