A report from Marsh McLennan, Feeling the Heat: How Healthcare Providers Can Meet the Climate Challenge, delves into many aspects of this issue, including the importance of building operational and financial resilience to help mitigate physical and transition risks. Guy Carpenter is a business of Marsh McLennan.
For example, healthcare providers need clear plans for business continuity, crisis management and disaster recovery that take into account the overlaps and interplay of different threats—such as extreme weather events coinciding with a pandemic and geopolitical crisis.
Operational resilience requires adapting to gradual shifts as well, such as sea-level rise and rising temperatures. One method is climate-proofing facilities and equipment to withstand high winds and flooding, and procuring cooling and heating systems that can withstand extreme heat and cold.
Healthcare providers need to keep a close eye on financial resilience as well, in the face of unpredictable and potentially unmanageable climate impacts. Given the pace of innovation, healthcare providers may benefit from external expertise to identify appropriate tools and technologies, and integrate them into their enterprise risk management frameworks.
Guy Carpenter, leveraging its relationship with Marsh McLennan businesses Marsh, Oliver Wyman and Mercer, provides services to its clients that span multiple climate-related areas. Applying a combination of modeling techniques, proprietary risk assessments and the latest in scientific research helps clients prioritize climate-related activities, while also benchmarking the success of their approach against industry peers.
Feeling the heat
Besides growing disease burden and costs, healthcare providers face operational, financial and supply chain disruptions due to climate shocks and stresses.