ALISO VIEJO, Calif. - Jan. 15, 2025 –The negative effects of climate change are increasingly being experienced throughout healthcare, with impacts on individual patients, clinicians, organizational operations and public health as a whole
A symposium of articles published in AACN Advanced Critical Care examines the various ways climate change has affected acute and critical care. It also highlights the steps individuals and organizations can take to create sustainable changes in healthcare settings.
Mary Frances Pate, PhD, RN, and Margaret “Peggy” Slota, DNP, RN, CNS, FAAN, served as co-editors for the symposium, titled “Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability in Acute and Critical Care.” Pate is a clinical associate professor, St. David’s School of Nursing at Texas State University, Round Rock, and Slota is professor emerita in the School of Nursing at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., where she is also a Georgetown University Medical Center Distinguished Educator. Both have long been active in environmental issues that have impacted public and individual health.
“We are in a defining moment for climate change, and we must prepare to manage the inevitable impacts on human health,” said Pate, who wrote “Climate Change: Time for Hospitals to Respond” for this issue. “Healthcare organizations need to understand how they contribute to the problem and take action to reduce the effects on their communities, patients, and employees.”
Weather-related disasters may dominate news coverage related to climate change, but hospitals are also seeing more patients who require care due to extreme temperatures, drought, poor air quality and other environmental conditions. Supply chain interruptions, medication shortages and operational adjustments can also be traced back to environmental causes.
Louisa Shelby, MSN, RN, IBCLC, is nurse lactation program coordinator lead, Center for Women and Families, Lactation Department, Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, Corvallis, Oregon. In “Developing a Green Nursing Practice in a Profession That Contributes to Climate Change: One Nurse’s Journey,” she provides resources and advice to help others move beyond their personal efforts to being part of more comprehensive solutions to combat waste and efforts to apply sustainability principles in their organizations.
Additional articles in the journal’s winter 2024 issue provide clinical information related to the impact of climate change on patient populations and nursing practice. They include:
- Relationship between climate and emerging infectious diseases
- Critical care nursing response to the 2023 wildfire disaster in Maui, Hawaii
- Climate-related emergencies in pregnancy
AACN Advanced Critical Care is a quarterly, peer-reviewed publication with in-depth articles intended for experienced critical care and acute care clinicians at the bedside, advanced practice nurses, and clinical and academic educators. Each issue also includes a topic-based symposium, feature articles and columns of interest to critical care and progressive care clinicians.
Access the issue by visiting the AACN Advanced Critical Care website at http://acc.aacnjournals.org/.
About AACN Advanced Critical Care: AACN Advanced Critical Care is a quarterly, peer-reviewed publication with in-depth articles intended for experienced critical care and acute care clinicians at the bedside, advanced practice nurses and clinical and academic educators. An official publication of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), the journal has a circulation of 1,500 and can be accessed at http://acc.aacnjournals.org/.
About the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses: For more than 50 years, the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) has been dedicated to acute and critical care nursing excellence. The organization’s vision is to create a healthcare system driven by the needs of patients and their families in which acute and critical care nurses make their optimal contribution. AACN is the world’s largest specialty nursing organization, with about 130,000 members and nearly 200 chapters in the United States.
American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, 27071 Aliso Creek Road, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656; 949-362-2000; www.aacn.org; facebook.com/aacnface; x.com/aacnme