Choosing Wisely and the climate crisis: a role for clinicians

There are growing calls for healthcare to confront it’s role in the climate crisis. Estimates suggest that carbon emissions from healthcare constitute 5% of net global emissions. To put this into context, emissions from all air travel are estimated at 3.5% of net global emissions.1 Health systems, organisations and clinicians have been called on to lead efforts to reduce emissions given that the climate crisis presents a major threat to human health. Ensuring appropriateness of care, and reducing overuse are central planks of strategies suggested in the literature and are increasingly being enacted by large healthcare systems and provider organisations to reduce healthcare’s climate impact.2 However, individual clinicians are often left with little guidance or support in terms of how to do this in practice. To illustrate, the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) within the United States Department of Health and Human...
Source: BMJ Quality and Safety - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Viewpoints Source Type: research