5 Topic Commentaries

What heat brings to acute care

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  Mary D. Willis, PhD, MPH

  Epidemiology & Environmental Health

  •

  Boston University School of Public Health

  “These two heat waves alone were responsible for over 13,000 excess emergency department visits—a surge that requires real-time visibility and rapid response.”

  Source
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  Amruta Nori-Sarma, PhD, MPH

  Environmental Health

  •

  Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

  “This is a proof of concept for how near-real time EHR data can be turned into actionable intelligence during an ongoing climate event.” “If we can see, for example, that older adults with kidney disease are driving a spike in emergency department visits during a heat wave, health systems can respond by increasing outreach, ensuring dialysis access, and staffing up for the next event, well before traditional data sources would typically be available.”

  Source
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  Caleb J. Dresser, MD, MPH

  Emergency Medicine

  •

  Harvard Medical School; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

  “If you happen to have an unrelated medical event [on an extremely hot day], the health care system you rely on may be under a lot more strain.” “So, while heat finds the vulnerabilities in our society in a really devastating way for some people, it also puts all of us at risk.”

  Source
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  Nicole A. Errett, PhD, MSPH

  Environmental Health & Disaster Resilience

  •

  University of Washington School of Public Health

  “Imagine showing up at an emergency department and being placed in a body bag.”

  Source
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  Cameron Buck, MD

  Emergency Medicine

  •

  UW Medicine / Valley Medical Center

  “We were severely unprepared for the number of patients we were going to see.”

  Source