Crisis resilience in medical practices and clinics

Abstract

Climate change because of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions increasingly triggers extreme weather events. Of all the continents, Europe is warming the fastest. Heat and drought, forest fires and floods will worsen in Europe even in optimistic global warming scenarios, affecting living conditions across the continent. Extreme weather events threaten energy and food security, ecosystems, infrastructure, water resources, financial stability, and people's healthcare. Many of these risks have already reached critical levels and could take on catastrophic proportions without immediate, decisive action. This paper outlines current challenges for medical practices and clinics in the context of climate change and provides examples and guidance for strengthening crisis resilience. Selective literature review on the different requirements for crisis resilience in practices and clinics was performed. Medical practices and clinics achieve crisis resilience by high degrees of adaptability and flexibility. They prepare for climate change-related challenges and are, therefore, able to protect themselves and maintain their function in the healthcare system. Recent weather events in Germany revealed insufficient resilience among the healthcare sector; hence, improvements are necessary. Changing environmental conditions urgently require the healthcare sector to adapt and effectively strengthen crisis resilience in order to ensure that critical infrastructure remains functional and the population has access to healthcare.