The environmental impact of digital healthcare

The Delegation’s ethics unit worked with Syntec Numérique, FEIMA, Cigref, Shift Projet, Institut du Numérique Responsable, DINUM, Groupe VYV, Société Française de Santé Digitale, OVH, MiPih, France Assos Santé, and numerous experts from civil society, to draw up a report that provides the first sectoral breakdown of the environmental impact of digital technology.

It proposes three principles of action:

• We need to think deeply about our needs and fight against all forms of “useless digital technology”. In the final analysis, it’s not so much the technology itself that needs to be questioned as its under-optimized use, which is sometimes excessive or even disproportionate to the benefits sought (assessment of the benefit/risk ratio of digital healthcare services).
• Relevance of care (eco-care) as a lever for digital sobriety, as it mechanically leads to a reduction in the use of digital services.
• Eco-design of digital healthcare services to meet users’ needs, using the minimum of IT resources and without degrading the service provided, in order to minimize the impact on the environment.

Its aim is to raise awareness of the environmental impact of digital systems among all players in the digital healthcare ecosystem (including healthcare system users, patients, professionals, software publishers and manufacturers), and to provide food for thought on digital sobriety as applied to the healthcare, social and medico-social sectors, with a view to concrete action.

It is divided into six parts, with two zooms and three chapters entitled “Pour approfondir” (“For further reading”) aimed at detailing certain points with a view to putting digital sobriety into practice.