A number of health care providers in Washington are coming together to ensure they are prepared to deal with climate change and its impact on patients.
The Washington Health Care Climate Alliance includes eight health care systems statewide that represent 40 hospitals.
Alliance spokeswoman Robyn Rothman says climate-related health issues are becoming common in the region.
“People in Washington are familiar with the wildfires going on in the state and that has a huge effect on air quality. And that can have a huge effect on vulnerable populations, like children or the elderly,” Rothman said.
She says the alliance works to reduce the carbon footprint of hospitals by helping them set greenhouse gas reduction goals.
“Health care has a pretty significant footprint. In the U.S., health care is responsible for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions, with hospitals themselves being a little more than a third of that," she said. "There are a lot things in health care that make it energy intensive, water intensive. There’s a lot of waste that goes on with healthcare, so all these health systems are already engaging in this sustainability work."
Rothman says the group will advocate for climate related bills in the state legislature.
“We just wanted to build a coalition of health systems to really engage in this advocacy, both in the legislature, but also on a regulatory level, in ways that we could help hospitals to mitigate their footprint, ways they can build climate resiliency,” she said.
Rothman said some of the participating health systems helped advocate for legislation last session that called for 100% clean energy sources.
Spokane health systems that support the Climate Alliance include Multicare, Providence/St. Joseph's and Kaiser Permanente.
