Falck’s purpose is to advance sustainable healthcare to meet people’s changing needs. We wish to improve patients’ quality of life, protect the climate and work smarter. This means taking a different look at patients and transforming the way we deliver our services. For example, if we can treat people at home instead of driving them to the hospital, it will improve their wellbeing and at the same time reduce carbon emissions.
As an example, we are reducing emissions by converting to alternative energy sources, adjusting our care models to test new tools like telehealth, and new care models such as monitoring patients outside of hospitals.
We optimise operations to reduce the negative impact of our patient care. We are reducing emissions from our fleet by converting it to electrical vehicles to the extent possible, improving fuel efficiency. A major milestone was also achieved in the beginning of 2023, when we launched Denmark's first electric ambulance. We have also introduced electric patient transport vehicles in Spain.
read more about our transitioning to green fleet here
Some of our vehicles are difficult to electrify due to their operational requirements. To optimise the way these vehicles run, for example, Falck is running a pilot with 120 vehicles of intelligent telematics. These telematics provide feedback to the driver on how efficiently and safely they are driving, encouraging improvement. These potential efficiencies are applicable to our entire fleet and the pilot is currently on track to find a 5% reduction in CO2.
We have committed to Science Based Targets initiative, and we will in this journey seek for e.g. medical goods and services with less CO2 footprint.
read more about commitment to Science Based Targets initiative
We reinvent services to deliver our patient care in smarter ways. We focus on identifying smarter solutions than e.g. driving healthcare professionals out to patients. Online consultations and digitalisation of services are some of the alternative ways of working.
For example, in Colombia, one third of our services delivered are now virtual consultations. We can therefore reduce emissions while increasing the quality of life for our customers and patients.
We transform systems to realise strong and sustainable patient care. One way to transform systems is to monitor chronical patients at home to avoid a critical acute situation from occurring, and thereby minimise the need for sending an ambulance.
For example, in Poland we have implemented a new telecare solution provided to elderly people living alone in urban areas. We serve around 10,000 seniors who wear a teleband on the wrist which tracks and wires information. This is closely monitored by paramedic and nurses from Falck’s Telecare Centre. In this and other partnerships we use technologies to transform systems to benefit the quality of life of our patients whilst reducing our use of resources.
