Photo by: Pixabay user ar130405

Toward a Climate-Ready Health Care System: Institutional Motivators and Workforce Engagement

01/17/2024 | Milbank Quarterly

Health care systems must minimize greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and prepare for the impacts of climate change on facilities and patients. In a new perspective for the Milbank Quarterly, our Director of Healthcare Solutions Dr. Caleb Dresser, along with a diverse team of healthcare professionals, argues that to become climate-resilient, health care systems must reframe incentives to align with climate readiness goals and engage their workforce across all roles and professions.

In “Toward a Climate-Ready Health Care System: Institutional Motivators and Workforce Engagement,” Dresser addresses the barriers institutions face to becoming climate-ready, such as financial and regulatory constraints and understaffing, and outlines solutions to overcome these challenges, including policy recommendations and profession-specific opportunities to address the causes and impacts of climate change.

“Achieving climate readiness will depend on health care professionals at every level—from pharmacists and food service managers to nurses and social workers—everyone has an important part to play,” says Dresser. “We need all hands on deck to make lasting, systemic changes that will protect patients’ health.”

The authors use past examples of large-scale health system transformation, such as achieving Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance and implementing electronic health records (EHRs), to offer lessons for policymakers, health care leaders, educators, and health care workers as they seek to address the escalating impacts of climate change.

Taking a whole-of-health-care approach, the authors argue, is what is needed to achieve climate-readiness throughout the US health care system.

Policy recommendations include:

  • Coupling health care system preparedness regulations with new funding streams
  • Integrating sustainability metrics into health care organization accreditation and certification
  • Financing programs to improve health equity in the context of climate change
  • Setting guidelines for inclusion of climate readiness information in health professional and health care administrator education and certification
  • Professionalizing climate readiness activities through formalization of new roles and practice guidelines

Read in the Milbank Quarterly

Preterm and early-term birth, heat waves, and our changing climate

Heat waves pose an escalating threat to human health in general and the health of pregnant people and infants in particular.

Read Now

Harvard Medical School’s New Climate Change Curriculum Shows Early Success

New report details how Harvard Medical School developed, implemented, and evaluated its curriculum to prepare healthcare professionals for climate change.

Read Now

Toward a Climate-Ready Health Care System: Institutional Motivators and Workforce Engagement

Dr. Caleb Dresser argues that health care systems must reframe incentives and engage their workforce to become climate-resilient.

Read Now

Study: Teaching community organizing principles to health professionals significantly increases their capacity to take climate action

Read Now

Federal investments in climate change and health research are inadequate says Harvard analysis

Critical knowledge gaps hinder an evidence-based response and are perpetuated by scarce federal research funds.

Read Now

Hundreds of Hospitals on Atlantic and Gulf Coasts at Risk of Flooding from Hurricanes

Our study is the first to systematically investigate flooding risk to nearly 700 U.S. hospitals on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts from Category 1-4 storms.

Read Now

Communicating Statistics on the Health Effects of Climate Change

Health professionals need to communicate the health and equity implications of climate change effectively to protect health and motivate action.

Read Now

A Pediatrician’s Guide to Climate Change-Informed Primary Care

A practical approach for connecting climate change with health during pediatric well visits.

Read Now

The medical response to climate change

Our Director Dr. Aaron Bernstein lays out five pillars for the medical response to climate change.

Read Now

Adding A Climate Lens To Health Policy In The United States

Our Yerby Fellow Dr. Renee Salas and Interim Director Dr. Aaron Bernstein outline specific recommendations for achieving climate action through health policy and decision making.

Read Now

Can Medications Make You More Sensitive to Sun and Heat?

Our Climate and Health Fellow Dr. Kimberly Humphrey explains how people taking certain medications can protect themselves from the heat.

Read Now

‘Children Are Not Little Adults’ and Need Special Protection During Heat Waves

Our Director Dr. Aaron Bernstein is working to protect children from heat and advance health equity.

Read Now

A new toolkit makes health tips for heat waves more accessible

Our new toolkit for patients, providers and clinics provides guidance to prepare for or respond to weeks of prolonged heat.

Read Now

Patient-Centered Climate Action and Health Equity

The health care industry can make equitable patient-centered climate action a reality across the nation. Here's how.

Read Now

Fossil-Fuel Pollution and Climate Change - A New NEJM Group Series

A monthly series in NEJM will call attention to rising global greenhouse gas emissions that harm our health.

Read Now

Extreme heat health interventions top of mind for pediatric physician

Precision medicine can be advanced by patient-centered climate resiliency strategies, says our Director Dr. Aaron Bernstein.

Read Now

Climate action is critical for health equity. Community health clinics are key - and need more support.

We are working with Americares and Johnson & Johnson to develop climate health equity programs at community health clinics across the nation.

Read Now

Hurricanes and Health

Policymakers face three interlinked challenges in protecting human health from hurricanes: increasing risks, increasing exposure, and unequal impacts.

Read Now

Pandemic lessons can help in fight against climate change

Climate change causes new health problems, worsens existing health problems, and affects healthcare delivery. But it is not an equal opportunity harmer.

Read Now

New climate report sparks demand for change in healthcare

Healthcare organizations, medical societies, and individual healthcare practitioners call for decarbonization and disaster preparedness to protect our health from climate change.

Read Now

Caleb Dresser

Caleb Dresser MD, MPH

Caleb is an emergency medicine physician whose research focuses on addressing health needs during and after climate-related disasters.

View Profile