Healthcare Sustainability: Educating Clinicians through Telementoring

Abstract

Climate change is the most serious planetary emergency of our time. Carbon emissions secondary to the healthcare industry account for about ten percent of all emissions in the United States. Health professionals, including all clinicians, public health professionals, community health workers, first responders and hospital administrators, therefore, need to understand how they can make a difference in their profession, by understanding the health-related impacts of climate change and the importance of healthcare sustainability. An 8-week telementoring Climate Change Healthcare Sustainability ECHO series was developed to educate healthcare professionals in these topics, such as the health-related effects of climate change, healthcare sustainability, quality healthcare and carbon accounting. A total of 376 participants from throughout the US and 16 other countries completed this 8-week, 1 h per week virtual series and received no-cost continuing medical education credits. The evaluation consisted of pre- and post-Zoom polls, weekly post-session surveys and the registration demographics. Participants were primarily physicians and public health professionals. Participants who elected to complete the post-session survey stated that they increased their knowledge and communication skills regarding talking to patients and colleagues about sustainability. Future training will include additional quantitative and qualitative surveys to measure improvements in knowledge and behavior over time. This may include focus groups as well as surveys after 3 and 6 months.