E5-b Making Healthcare More Environmentally Sustainable - Practical Guidance for Primary Care Clinicians

5. Wild Card

  • Date: 2024-10-25
  • Concurrent Session: Concurrent Session E
  • Time: 9:45- 10:30 am
  • Room:
  • Style: Presentation (information provided to audience, with opportunity for audience to ask question)
  • Focus: Balance between both (e.g. Presentation of a best-practice guideline that combines research evidence, policy issues and practical steps for implementation)
  • Target audience: Clinicians, leadership

Learning objectives:

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

  • Describe the connection between Health Equity and Environmental Sustainability and how this relates to the provision of primary care
  • Identify opportunities to improve environmentally sustainability in their work as primary care clinicians or administrators
  • Critically examine their own primary care practice and apply a framework for environmental sustainability to their work as primary care clinicians or administrators

Summary

Climate change and environmental toxicities are having a profound and direct impact on the health of Canadians. From wildfire smoke to heat waves to toxic industrial pollutants, these issues are a health equity concern as they have differing effects on different populations. The healthcare sector is responsible for 5% of Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions, making environmental stewardship an important consideration for all clinicians and administrators.

In this presentation, we will review how climate change impacts human health, discuss the health equity impacts of climate change, and will focus on solutions to make primary care more environmentally sustainable. Clinicians will learn about practical solutions to implement day-to-day and will consider how they can shift their approach to care to reduce the carbon footprint of their practice.

Presenters:

  • Katherine Koroluk, Pharmacist, Thames Valley Family Health Team