ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2025
Estimating Patient and Family Costs and CO2 Emissions for Telehealth and In-Person Health Care Appointments in British Columbia, Canada: Geospatial Mixed Methods Study.
Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Health impacts of climate change and role of the health sector in mitigating carbon emissions.Urologie (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2025Review
- Changes in emergency and primary care use after adding virtual physicians to HealthLink BC's 8-1-1 program.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- [Health impacts of climate change and role of the health sector in mitigating carbon emissions. German version].Urologie (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPatients inevitably incur some cost for accessing health care, even in universal systems such as Canada. The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically shifted health care delivery from in-person to telehealth services, also shifting the proportion of costs offset by patients and their families by reducing the need to travel to in-person appointments.
objectiveThis study aimed to develop a method for estimating the costs patients and their families incur and CO
methodsWe present a method to evaluate the costs associated with in-person and telehealth care appointments from the perspective of patients, their families, and the environment. We used ED locations, road distances, and duration of appointment to account for costs paid by patients (ie, lost productivity, informal caregiving, and out-of-pocket expenses) attributed to travel to receive medical care. Costs to the environment were evaluated by calculating the amount of CO
resultsOur method estimates that patients in British Columbia pay up to $300 (2023 CAD, CAD $1=US $0.86) on average to attend an in-person ED visit, depending on where they live; $166 may be attributed to lost productivity, $83 to informal caregiving, and $50 to out-of-pocket expenses. These estimates are higher than most observed cost estimates. In addition, avoiding in-person care diverts up to 13 kg of CO
conclusionsWe present a novel method for estimating patient-incurred costs and CO
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