Promoting environmental sustainability and climate change resilience at healthcare facilities: a pilot study in Iran

Healthcare facilities (HCFs) such as hospitals, clinics, and health centres are recognized as the first and last line of defence against unfavourable impacts of climate change. This study examined the climate resilience and environmental sustainability (CRES) of HCFs in seven pilot provinces of Iran. In this regard, the action levels of HCFs were explored in four major areas, including health workforce; water, sanitation and healthcare waste; energy; and infrastructure, technologies and products. Analysis of conditions at HCFs in the studied areas demonstrated that energy; infrastructure, technologies, products; and water, sanitation and healthcare waste are at a low level, while the health workforce area is considered as a medium level. Among the various types of HCFs the highest CRES is related to hospitals, and the lowest is allocated to rural–urban health centres. Therefore, raising the level of awareness, training and empowering health workforces, optimizing the use of resources particularly water and energy, waste minimization, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, and promoting new systems and technologies can improve HCFs resilience in these centres. The results of this research led to the establishment of an effective tool for the evaluation of the CRES of HCFs. In addition, identifying HCFs conditions can help policymakers and health system officials in planning and managing appropriately to increase the level of CRES of these systems.