When Healthcare heats up: Building organizational resilience of the health system to heat extremes in Austria

Extreme heat waves and high temperatures have tremendous impacts on human health and consequently the health system. Over the past years, the increasing summer heat has brought both, the population and the healthcare organisations to their limits. As care and emergency organizations are already experiencing challenging conditions during holiday season due to limited personnel resources, this situation is intensified due to rising heat that causes increased care needs and emergency operations. From a patient’s perspective, vulnerable groups, such as children, the elderly, and people with chronic and mental illnesses, are particularly affected. Symptoms can range from heat stress and cardiovascular problems to sudden death. While this places a particular burden on individual people, it also poses major challenges for health and care systems.

The research projects HeatProtect¹and PARAHSOHL², aim at supporting health care organisations through identifying the most promising adaptation measures and possible digital tools. Therefore, sector specific challenges of the health system in Austria caused by extreme heat are addressed. Since heat days and tropical nights became more severe in recent decades and are continuously increasing, heat is perceived as emerging climate risk in Austria.

Within the projects, meteorological, climatological and health expertise is combined through the participating organisations. Further, data from all areas are combined and assessed applying qualitative and quantitative methods to support the health sector in dealing with future heat events. Health-related heat indicators are used to quantify impacts under future global warming levels, while a regression model is applied to estimate the associated effects on hospitalizations.

To identify the risks and vulnerabilities associated with heat as hazard for individual target groups, the concept of climate impact chains is used. This approach helps to identify key points where action can reduce the vulnerability of the organisations and therefore the risk of extreme heat and improve resilience in the health system. Through an interdisciplinary research approach, the projects enable bridging gaps between the complexity of climate science and the demanding day-to-day challenges of the health system.

 

¹https://projekte.ffg.at/projekt/4847510

² https://projekte.ffg.at/projekt/5125189