Towards Climate Resilient and Environmentally Sustainable Health Care Facilities

Abstract

The aim of building climate resilient and environmentally sustainable health care facilities is: (a) to enhance their capacity to protect and improve the health of their target communities in an unstable and changing climate; and (b) to empower them to optimize the use of resources and minimize the release of pollutants and waste into the environment. Such health care facilities contribute to high quality of care and accessibility of services and, by helping reduce facility costs, also ensure better affordability. They are an important component of universal health coverage. Action is needed in at least four areas which are fundamental requirements for providing safe and quality care: having adequate numbers of skilled human resources, with decent working conditions, empowered and informed to respond to these environmental challenges; sustainable and safe management of water, sanitation and health care waste; sustainable energy services; and appropriate infrastructure and technologies, including all the operations that allow for the efficient functioning of a health care facility. Importantly, this work contributes to promoting actions to ensure that health care facilities are constantly and increasingly strengthened and continue to be efficient and responsive to improve health and contribute to reducing inequities and vulnerability within their local settings. To this end, we propose a framework to respond to these challenges.

Materials AIILnInO4 with Ruddlesden-Popper Structure for Electrochemical Applications: Relationship between Ion (Oxygen-Ion, Proton) Conductivity, Water Uptake, and Structural Changes

“…Recent economic and social challenges pose a priority task for scientists to create new high-efficiency and clean energy resources [ 1 , 2 ]. Hydrogen is a renewable and high-efficiency energy source, and its use has more advantages compared to fossil fuels [ 3 , 4 ].…”

Situational assessment of hospital facilities for modernization purposes and resilience improvement

“…In fact, hospitals spend lots of energy because many services are active 24 h a day, and medical activities require energy-intensive equipment and systems [ 40 , 41 ]. Moreover, they can be responsible for large emissions of greenhouse gases and production of large amounts of environmental waste and contamination [ 42 ]. In Europe, many existing hospital facilities have been built before the adoption of regulations on energy and environmental sustainability [ 43 ].…”

“…In Europe, many existing hospital facilities have been built before the adoption of regulations on energy and environmental sustainability [ 43 ]. They often lack functioning infrastructure and are subject to inadequate energy supplies, water, sanitation and waste management services [ 42 ]. For this reason, there exist methodologies specifically designed for assessing, monitoring and improving energy and environmental sustainability [ 38 , 41 , [44] , [45] , [46] ].…”

Analyzing Healthcare Facility Resilience: Scientometric Review and Knowledge Map

“…Codjoe et al analyzed the vulnerability of healthcare facilities and health services to flood and heat wave, and proposed measures to improve HFR in low-income areas (47). Extreme weather can cut off power supplies to healthcare facilities, which will disrupt the continuity of healthcare provision (48). Therefore, power outage problems have attracted the attention of researchers (49)(50)(51).…”

“…Therefore, power outage problems have attracted the attention of researchers (49)(50)(51). A series of response measures were put forward, including preparing emergency generators (48,50), better detection of power supply failures (49), the rise of distributed energy (52), and microgrids (53), etc.…”