HEALTHCARE FACILITY RESILIENCE
Evaluating climate change risks when planning facilities
In an article first published in Canadian Healthcare Facilities, Lisa Westerhoff, who leads the Climate Policy & Planning team at Integral Group in Vancouver, reports on a presentation she gave at the Canadian Healthcare Engineering Society British Columbia Chapter Conference in Whistler last June, in which she and two co-speakers ‘unpacked and demystified how to integrate climate resilience into healthcare facilities’.
With record-breaking temperatures increasingly becoming the new normal across Canada, and catastrophic wildfires and floods a not-too-distant memory, the time for climate resilience planning was yesterday. Globally, we have seen 1.1 °C of warming since pre-industrial times, and Canada is warming faster than the global average, due to its northern latitude. At the 2022 Canadian Healthcare Engineering Society (CHES) British Columbia chapter conference in Whistler, I was joined by Craig Dedels, manager of Climate Risk and Resilience for Vancouver Coastal Health, and Jolene McLaughlin, Sustainability director at EllisDon, in a session titled, ‘Planning and designing for climate resilience in health facilities’. We unpacked and demystified how to integrate climate resilience into healthcare facilities, and showed how sector leaders could drive meaningful change in the collective efforts for a resilient, low-carbon future. Here is a summary of that session to inspire healthcare design teams to consider their shared responsibility in building a climate-resilient Canada.
A call to action Climate resilience in the healthcare sector in Canada begins with the health authorities. The Energy and Environmental Sustainability (EES) team is a regional collaborative that supports Fraser Health, Providence Health Care, Provincial Health Services Authority, and Vancouver Coastal Health in the transition toward low-carbon, climate-resilient, and environmentally sustainable, health systems in British Columbia. The EES team categorises these efforts into seven interrelated focus areas: climate change; energy and carbon; materials; transportation; water; food, and leadership and innovation. The strategic framework – presented as an infinity symbol (Figure 1) to reflect the work as a journey that requires continual improvement – acts as a guide to support staff in enacting transformation across the healthcare sector.
Our focus areas
Figure 1: The strategic framework – presented as an ‘infinity’ symbol, to reflect the work as a journey that requires continual improvement – acts as a guide to support staff in enacting transformation across the healthcare sector.
Developing climate resilience guidelines The events of the past few years have shown how climate-related hazards are already impacting health infrastructure, operations, and supply chains, creating challenges for healthcare workers and the communities they serve. However, while it has been clear that there’s an immediate need to take action within the healthcare sector, where to begin has yet to be identified. In 2019, Integral Group began working with the EES team to create the Climate Resilience Guidelines for B.C. Health Facility Planning and Design (see Figure 2). Launched in late 2020, after more than a year of multi-sector collaboration with health organisations, industry experts, and others, the guidelines provide planners and designers with information necessary to identify and address the key impacts
Climate change
Energy and carbon
Food
Leadership and innovation
of climate change on new healthcare facilities. Overall, the guidelines help users in identifying potential strategies to manage risk and enhance resilience; strategising site planning, facility design, equipment selection, or long-term operations, and prioritising measures that work synergistically to advance goals for the facility – making the most of resources, strengthening health service delivery, and enhancing livability for users.
Lessons from the field Design teams have begun to apply these guidelines to different stages of the design process – from planning, to procurement, to implementation, of various acute and long-term care projects across the province. They include Cowichan District Hospital, Royal Columbian Hospital, and St. Paul’s Hospital. The process has resulted
May 2023 Health Estate Journal 23 Materials
Transportation Water
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