Environmental and Patient Impact of Applying a Point-of-Care Ultrasound Model in Primary Care: Rural vs. Urban Centres

Francesc X Marín-Gomez, Jacobo Mendioroz Peña, Vicenç Canal Casals, Marcos Romero Mendez, Ana Darnés Surroca, Antoni Nieto Maclino and Josep Vidal-Alaball
Additional contact information
Francesc X Marín-Gomez: Health Promotion in Rural Areas Research Group, Institut Català de la Salut, 08272 Sant Fruitós de Bages, Spain
Jacobo Mendioroz Peña: Health Promotion in Rural Areas Research Group, Institut Català de la Salut, 08272 Sant Fruitós de Bages, Spain
Vicenç Canal Casals: Centre d’Atenció Primària Vic Nord, Gerència Territorial de Barcelona, Institut Català de la Salut, 08500 Vic, Barcelona, Spain
Marcos Romero Mendez: Centre d’Atenció Primària St. Quirze de Besora, Gerència Territorial de Barcelona, Institut Català de la Salut, 08580 Sant Quirze de Besora, Barcelona, Spain
Ana Darnés Surroca: Centre d’Atenció Primària Manlleu, Gerència Territorial de Barcelona, Institut Català de la Salut, 08560 Manlleu, Barcelona, Spain
Antoni Nieto Maclino: Centre d’Atenció Primària Sta. Eugènia de Berga, Gerència Territorial de Barcelona, Institut Català de la Salut, 08507 Santa Eugènia de Berga, Barcelona, Spain
Josep Vidal-Alaball: Health Promotion in Rural Areas Research Group, Institut Català de la Salut, 08272 Sant Fruitós de Bages, Spain

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 9, 1-11

Abstract: Motor vehicles are a major contributor to air pollution, and the exposure to this human-caused air pollution can lead to harmful health effects. This study evaluates the impact of the provision of point-of-care ultrasounds (POCUS) by primary care (PC) to avoid the patient’s need to travel to a specialized service. The study estimates the costs and air pollution avoided during 2019. The results confirm that performing this ultrasound at the point of care reduces the emission of 61.4 gr of carbon monoxide, 14.8 gr of nitric oxide and 2.7 gr of sulfur dioxide on each trip. During the study, an average of 17.8 km, 21.4 min per trip and almost 2000 L of fuel consumed in a year were avoided. Performing POCUS from PC reduces fuel consumption and the emission of air pollutants and also saves time and money. Furthermore, only 0.3% of the scans had to be repeated by radiologists. However, more studies with more participants need to be done to calculate the exact impact that these pollution reductions will have on human health.

Keywords: point-of-care systems; ultrasonography; traffic-related pollution; primary care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/9/3333/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/9/3333/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:9:p:3333-:d:356749

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().