Suzanne Bohan, Contra Costa Times
“A team of Bay Area researchers faced a Herculean challenge 15 months ago: Sequence the DNA of more than 100,000 Kaiser Permanente members joining an unprecedented study linking health to genetics and environmental conditions.
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Turley M et al, Health Affairs, 30(5)
Electronic health records have the potential to improve the environmental footprint of the health care industry. We estimate that Kaiser Permanente’s electronic health record system, which covers 8.7 million beneficiaries, eliminated 1,000 tons of paper records and 68 tons of x-ray film, and that it has lowered gasoline consumption among patients who otherwise would have made trips to the doctor by at least three million gallons per year.
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Frank Irving, EHRWatch
“Research conducted by health provider Kaiser Permanente estimates that the use of electronic health records could lower carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 1.7 million tons across the U.S. population.
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Kaiser Permanente
“An analysis by Kaiser Permanente shows that use of health information technology can dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and produce other important environmental savings. The study, published in the May issue of Health Affairs, estimates that electronic health records could lower carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 1.7 million tons across the entire U.S. population.
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Nicole Lewis, InformationWeek Healthcare
“Enterprise wide use of e-health records has a neutral to slightly positive impact on the environment, according to a new report released by Kaiser Permanente, which recently studied the “environmental footprint” of its own KP HealthConnect electronic patient records and its KP HealthConnect picture archiving and communication systems.
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Brian Dolan, mobihealthnews
“Bill Davenhall, who leads the health and human services marketing team at ESRI, made the case that adding environmental data to patients’ charts — places the patients lived, types of chemicals and particulates found in those locations’ air.
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