Climate for preventive health care intensifies

A consistent lens for assessing climate risk resilience in Canadian hospitals fits well with preventive health care practices and growing recognition of how the social determinants of health create pressures and costs for the broader health care system. The Health Standards Organization (HSO), the national standards development and assessment body for the health care sector, is currently inviting hospitals to help test a new environmental evaluation and benchmarking tool.

Participating hospitals will have the opportunity to plot their own practices and performance in any or all of 10 categories, which encompass patient-facing, administrative and facilities management services, and to compare their scores against anonymized averages from the broader database. The benchmarking tool is based on the longstanding green hospital scorecard, and has been developed in collaboration with the scorecard’s sponsor, the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care (CCGHC).

The new iteration comes after HSO formally pledged earlier this year to develop guidance to help hospitals respond to climate-related risk. This will be done in tandem with Accreditation Canada, the not-for-profit inspection body that oversees compliance with medical practice and facilities standards.

“We are thrilled to usher in a new era for the scorecard in partnership with HSO and Accreditation Canada,” says Dr Myles Sergeant, executive director of the CCGHC. “This collaboration strengthens our commitment to supporting hospitals across Canada in their sustainability journeys and advancing a climate-resilient, net-zero health system.”

During this test phase, participating hospitals can use the tool to get a reading of their own climate resilience profiles and provide feedback to the benchmark developers. Interested candidates can apply through the online portal until May 22, 2025.

“We’re excited to continue learning from and working alongside global climate action leaders to drive forward on low-carbon, sustainable and climate resilient health systems,” says John McGraw, HSO’s vice president, products and strategic offerings.

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