Climate change is challenging health systems to simultaneously strengthen resilience, reduce environmental impacts, and deliver high-quality, equitable care. This panel showcases innovative approaches to health system transformation.
Presentations will explore embedding climate resilience and sustainability into hospital operations, regional collaboration to prepare health systems for climate-related hazards, decarbonizing respiratory care through clinical, digital, and policy innovations, and measuring the financial and environmental benefits of alternative models of care. Together, these examples demonstrate how healthcare organizations can integrate sustainability, resilience, quality improvement, and equity to create health systems that are better prepared for future climate challenges while improving care today.
Moderator
Edward Xie, MD, MSc
Edward Xie works as an emergency physician and Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) at the University of Toronto, on Treaty 13 territory. He was the past President and Board Chair of Toronto Environmental Alliance, Board member and Ontario Chair of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and Faculty Co-Lead of Climate Change and Health in the DFCM. Edward is currently a member of the leadership table of the Collaborative Centre for Climate, Health and Sustainable Care (University of Toronto). His research and teaching focus on planetary health, social and environmental justice, sustainability in health care settings, and health system strengthening.
Panelists
Sonya Cressman, PhD, MBA
Sonya Cressman is an established health economist advancing health system accountability. Her work has improved how equitable access to healthcare and financial protection against catastrophic expenditure are measured. As Evaluation Lead at UBC Digital Emergency Medicine (DigEM) and Adjunct Professor at SFU, she leads applied evaluations of digital service delivery models designed to reduce inequities—particularly for patients in Indigenous, rural, and remote communities. Her research has informed multi-million-dollar healthcare decisions with national and international impact.
Tarek Hussein, RPh, PharmD, MBA
Tarek Hussein is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, a clinical pharmacist, and a healthcare consultant. His work sits at the intersection of pharmacy innovation, the social determinants of health, and environmental sustainability. As Director of Content Portfolio for the Canadian Association of Pharmacy for the Environment (CAPhE) and Co-Chair of the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care’s Sustainable Prescribing Working Group, he advances low-carbon, climate-resilient pharmacy practice and sustainable models of care. Tarek also serves as Chief Development Officer of the International Social Prescribing Pharmacists Association, advancing equitable, person-centred care through social prescribing. He is conducting graduate research at the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy on integrating social prescribing into community pharmacy practice.
Tasha-Aliya Kara, MPH
Tasha-Aliya Kara is a public health professional specializing in emergency management, climate-ready health systems, and global health. She holds an MPH from the University of Toronto and brings experience spanning provincial health system leadership in British Columbia and international collaboration in Uganda, where she has worked on vaccine equity and universal health coverage. Tasha has led interdisciplinary research and strategic planning across government and academia and has published on health equity, disaster risk reduction governance, and climate readiness.
Shannan Saunders, MA
Shannan Saunders is a Canadian healthcare emergency management leader and emerging scholar whose work centers on resilience, environmental sustainability, and climate adaptation in hospital systems. She is pursuing a DBA at National University, focusing on embedding climate adaptation and environmental stewardship into health‑system strategy and continuity planning. At Southlake Health, she leads emergency management and business continuity initiatives that integrate climate risk, extreme weather preparedness, and low‑carbon, climate‑resilient models of care.
Nicole Wagner, MSc
Nicole Wagner is a manager at Health Emergency Management BC (HEMBC), a program of the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) that leads and supports emergency management for British Columbia’s health-care system, including regional health authorities and the Ministry of Health. She holds a BA in Psychology, Graduate Diploma in Public Health, and an MSc in Disaster Healthcare, with a research focus on how climate change exacerbates existing risks and inequities, while introducing new challenges to emergency preparedness. Her interests lie at the crossroads of climate change, global health and disaster management, which led her on a career path of increasing resilience and reducing risk for the health care system, with a specific focus on rural and remote settings. In addition to her work at HEMBC, Nicole is an editor with HazNet magazine, the information platform of the Canadian Risks and Hazards Network that tells Canada’s resilience story. When not working in the disaster space, Nicole is mostly outdoors enjoying peace and solitude in the mountains.