title: Health care facilities resilient to climate change impacts.
abstract: Climate change will increase the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events and create risks that will impact health care facilities. Health care facilities will need to assess climate change risks and adopt adaptive management strategies to be resilient, but guidance tools are lacking. In this study, a toolkit was developed for health care facility officials to assess the resiliency of their facility to climate change impacts. A mixed methods approach was used to develop climate change resiliency indicators to inform the development of the toolkit. The toolkit consists of a checklist for officials who work in areas of emergency management, facilities management and health care services and supply chain management, a facilitator's guide for administering the checklist, and a resource guidebook to inform adaptation. Six health care facilities representing three provinces in Canada piloted the checklist. Senior level officials with expertise in the aforementioned areas were invited to review the checklist, provide feedback during qualitative interviews and review the final toolkit at a stakeholder workshop. The toolkit helps health care facility officials identify gaps in climate change preparedness, direct allocation of adaptation resources and inform strategic planning to increase resiliency to climate change.
authors.affiliation: Climate Change and Health Office, Health Canada, 171 Slater Street, Ottawa, ON K1A 0K9, Canada. jaclyn.paterson@hc-sc.gc.ca.
authors.forename: Jaclyn
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Paterson
authors.affiliation: Climate Change and Health Office, Health Canada, 171 Slater Street, Ottawa, ON K1A 0K9, Canada. peter.berry@hc-sc.gc.ca.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Berry
authors.affiliation: ClimAdapt LLC, 424 Tyndall Street, Los Altos, CA 94022, USA. krisebi@essllc.org.
authors.forename: Kristie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ebi
authors.affiliation: Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care, 1724 Concession 6 West, RR #2, Branchton, ON N0B 1L0, Canada. linda@greenhealthcare.ca.
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Varangu
mesh_terms: D057231:Climate Change; D004189:Disaster Planning; D006275:Health Facility Planning / Q000379:methods*; D008350:Manitoba; D009674:Nova Scotia; D009864:Ontario