Healthcare systems are expanding their scope of practice as the whole planet’s health is becoming an increasingly urgent concern.
Last Monday, the New York Academy of Medicine assembled for a symposium more than 160 healthcare system executives, leaders from New York City health agencies, and environmental activists to discuss how to prepare the healthcare industry for the threats posed by the climate crisis.
Through speeches, panels discussions, and breakout sessions, participants addressed the intensifying challenges posed by the climate crisis—and how they might mitigate them.
“The resilience and well-being of all of our communities [in the face of a changing climate] is inseparably tied to the resilience and well-being of our health systems,” John Balbus, director of the climate change and equity office at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said in a recorded speech played at the symposium.
Waste and emission reduction
During a keynote speech, Jonathan Perlin, president and CEO of healthcare accreditation nonprofit Joint Commission, pointed to the relatively high rate of total US energy consumption that healthcare facilities gobble up annually, which is about 10%, according to a 2021 Department of Energy (DOE) report. This equals out to 581 trillion British thermal units (Btu), a measure of heat an energy source can produce. (One Btu is comparable to the heat from a single lit match, according to the Energy Information Administration.)
Yet “there are examples all around the country of improvement,” Perlin added, including energy-efficient LED lights, heat-insulating window shades, and heating buildings with electricity instead of fossil fuels.
A health sector climate pledge to push those changes forward, which hundreds of hospitals signed after HHS introduced the goal in 2022, could help halve emissions by 2030.
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Beyond what healthcare facilities consume, Perlin also highlighted what they produce.
“For every 100 beds, one ton of garbage is created every day,” he said. Of that waste, the World Health Organization found that about 15% is hazardous, meaning infectious, toxic, or radioactive.
Vivian Lee, an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, said during a panel that hospitals could reduce much of that waste. Some single-used items could be reused, she said, while others, such as gloves, may not always be necessary.
“From an infectious disease perspective, if you wash your hands, that’s sufficient for most cases,” Lee said. “This is where there’s a huge opportunity to align the business and financial considerations.”
Personal impact
In addition to the damaging weather events experts say have become supercharged by the climate crisis, the US is contending with more frequent “hotter-than-usual days and nights,” according to the EPA.
Cari Olson, assistant commissioner of New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said the agency has worked with epidemiologists to identify where city residents face the most potent threats from the climate crisis.
“We saw that the greatest threats to New Yorkers are in their homes,” she said during a panel discussion. “The number one thing that we can do to prevent these sorts of mortality is to provide cooling.”
To accomplish that, the agency promotes the Home Energy Assistance Program to ensure more residents have access to an air conditioner—or a means to pay for air conditioning—during the summer months.
“Living with energy insecurity has very real health impacts,” she said.