Distance spanning solutions in health care and care: Climate impacts and sustainability synergies

The Nordic region has set the ambitious goal of becoming the world’s most sustainable and integrated region by 2030. Distance spanning solutions in Nordic health care and care are closely aligned with this vision and each strategic priority.

Digital solutions in health care and care represent a promising avenue for improving service accessibility for citizens and enhancing sustainability. Digitalisation is viewed as one way of mitigating the negative environmental impacts of health care and care production. However, practical tools are needed in order to comprehensively assess the impacts of digitalisation in this field.

Understanding how services impact sustainability

The purpose of this publication is to enhance understanding of the implications of digitalised health care and care on the different dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The report consists of two parts.

Part 1, Medicine robot services in health care and care: Contribution to the green transition introduces a novel methodology to assess the environmental – especially the climate impacts and social impacts of digital healthcare and care services.

Part 2, Sustainability in digital health care: A new tool for evaluating impacts aims to broaden the perspective on the potential impacts of digitalisation in the Nordic welfare sector, from a narrow focus on climate impacts and carbon footprints to a broader focus that includes social, economic and other environmental dimensions.

Authors

Part 1 is written by Helinä Melkas (LUT University), Janne Pesu (Finnish Environment Institute), Satu Pekkarinen (LUT University), Riika Saurio (LUT University) and Jáchym Judl (Finnish Environment Institute).

Part 2 is written by Nelson Ekane, Somya Joshi, Henrik Carlsen and Nina Weitz from Stockholm Environment Institute.