Tele‐visits for GERD: “Ecofriendly, efficient and effective”

Abstract

Background and Aim Sars‐CoV‐19 pandemic necessitated a transition to telemedicine for many healthcare encounters. The environmental impact of this transition in gastroenterology (GI) combined with user experience has not been studied. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients who underwent telemedicine visits (telephone and video) at a GI clinic at West Virginia University. Distance of patients' residence from clinic × 2 was calculated, and Environmental Protection Agency calculators utilized to calculate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that were avoided from tele‐visits. Patients were reached by telephone and were asked questions to fill in a validated Telehealth Usability Questionnaire with Likert scales (1–7). Variables were also collected via chart review. Results A total of 81 video and 89 telephone visits were conducted for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) between March 2020 and March 2021. A total of 111 patients were enrolled, with a response rate of 65.29%. Mean age was lower in the video visit cohort compared with the telephone visit cohort (43.45 ± 14.32 years vs 52.34 ± 17.46 years). Most patients had medications prescribed during the visit (79.3%), and a majority had laboratory testing orders placed (57.7%). We calculated a total distance of 8732 miles that the patients would have traveled if they were to present for in‐person visits (including return trips). A total of 393.3 gallons of gasoline would have been required to transport these patients to and from the healthcare facility to their residence. A total of 3.5 metric tons of GHG's were saved by avoiding 393.3 gallons of gasoline for travel. In relatable terms, this is equivalent to burning more than 3500 pounds of coal. This averages to 31.5‐kg GHG emissions and 3.54 gallons of gasoline saved per patient. Conclusion Telemedicine for GERD resulted in significant environmental savings and was rated highly for access, satisfaction, and usability by patients. Telemedicine for GERD can be an excellent alternative to in‐person visits.

Exploring Quantitative Methodologies for Assessing the Environmental, Social, and Economic Impacts of Telemedicine: A Literature Review

“…Within the selected list of papers, 24 articles utilized official national databases to obtain specific conversion factors, enabling the quantification of environmental impacts, with a primary focus on reducing transportation. In particular, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA)'s conversion factors have emerged as the most frequently employed, featuring in nine distinct studies [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. The determination of physical distances between patients' residences and healthcare provider locations involved the utilization of tools such as Google Maps, zip codes, or other geospatial data tools.…”

“…To obtain results, several different questionnaire forms were detected, highlighting a missing common approach. For example, the Telemedicine Usability Questionnaire (TUQ) [36], the Telemedicine Satisfaction Survey (TeSS) [35], the System Usability Scale (SUS) [52,53], and the Telemedicine Satisfaction and Usefulness Questionnaire (TSUQ) [54,55] were identified in the selected articles. These assessments were often integrated with [56] other parameters related to medical outcomes, quality of life, and time saved.…”