The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's (the National Academies') Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Disasters and Emergencies convened a workshop on December 9–10, 2024 , to examine strategies, policies, and innovative actions with a strong focus on re-envisioning a more resilient Health Care and Public Health critical infrastructure.
As a Forum Planning Committee member and Moderator I was pleased to be joined by architect and engineering colleagues including Julie Hiromoto, HKS Dallas; Cole Roberts, ARUP San Francisco; William Seed, Jackson Health Systems (Florida); Amber Wirth, HKS Washington DC; and Therese McAllister, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
I would encourage you to review the concise summary which can be downloaded without cost here: Enhancing the Resilience of Health Care and Public Health Critical Infrastructure: Proceedings of a Workshop–in Brief | The National Academies Press
Some highlights from the summary:
§ Julie Hiromoto, HKS, asked the national health care and public health sector to think about the larger potential of the built environment and what can be achieved within and beyond the built environment. She outlined five different forms of resilience-infrastructure, economic, social, health, and environmental-and emphasized how the built environment can be leveraged to build resilience through intentional design and capital infrastructure investment decisions that promote public health, safety, and welfare.
§ Hiromoto, Cole Roberts, William Seed, and I noted that capital investments to strengthen resilience may need a business case with quantifiable outcomes, but the business case for maintaining the health care organization's reputation and long-term financial sustainability also can often justify these investments. William emphasized that every organization is well served by assessing and identifying the high priority critical risks and vulnerabilities and developing prioritized annual capital investment plans in facility improvements accordingly.
§ Therese McAllister reminded us of the demonstrated success of NIST's Community Resilience Planning Guidelines (Community Resilience Planning Guide | NIST).
§ Amber Wirth suggested that Built environment interventions require holistic thinking and place-based solutions to achieve both disaster resilience and improved carbon neutrality, said Wirth. She added Built environment interventions require holistic thinking and place-based solutions to achieve both disaster resilience and improved carbon neutrality, said Wirth. She added that regenerative design strategies for building infrastructure systems are intended to reverse degeneration of local natural systems and co-evolve with these systems to generate mutual benefits for building services, users, and local communities.
§ Cole Roberts introduced the concept of "ecosystem" mindset, an integrated, holistic approach through which organizations and communities can more effectively adapt to rapidly changing environments by fostering new partnerships and connections, both within the Health Care and Public Health (HPH) sector and between HPH and other critical infrastructure systems. He suggested that this could be coupled with an adaptation approach, which defines adaptation as the confluence of the ability to resist and the ability to recover.