With the complex connection between environmental health and human health becoming increasingly apparent, the necessity for healthcare professionals to incorporate planetary health approaches in their practice is more important than ever. Taking Action on Planetary Health introduces learners to the emerging and transdisciplinary social movement of Planetary health and offers the opportunity for learners to develop and implement solutions that will allow humanity and the natural systems we depend on to thrive now and in the future.

Over the course of 4 synchronous interactive online modules and 3 asynchronous modules with guided independent group work, participants will explore key planetary health concepts and frameworks, collaborate with a diverse group of learners, and apply planetary health principles to a novel and practical planetary health intervention.

Our goal is to build community and capacity among healthcare professionals committed to planetary health promotion and action.

Fundamentals of Sustainable Health Systems is a professional education program for frontline staff, administrators, and leaders within care delivery, professional, and support organizations with an interest in harnessing opportunities to achieve high quality, low carbon care.

Through an interactive and experiential Zoom session, participants hear from experts, participate in interactive activities, and network with others from across the country. Participants learn about the principles of sustainable healthcare, strategic sustainability messaging, environmental impact metrics, and more, to help them advocate for and participate in a bottom-up and top-down shift toward a more environmentally sustainable health system. A certificate of completion is awarded at the end of the course.

This course builds from the prerequisite online course Introduction to Sustainable Health Systems (self-paced; 90 mins), which participants must complete in advance of the course session in order to participate.

Fundamentals of Sustainable Perioperative Care

4-hour course

Perioperative care has an outsized environmental impact via its substantial waste production, generation of direct emissions, and energy use. It is therefore recognized as a significant area of opportunity for reducing healthcare’s environmental footprint. Participants in this course will gain knowledge, develop skills, and forge collaborations that will help them advocate for and participate in a bottom-up and top-down shift toward more environmentally sustainable perioperative care. Participants will hear from perioperative care providers on the front lines of sustainability efforts, and develop a project charter for a sustainable quality improvement project they can initiate in their own settings.

Climate Conscious Inhalers Prescribing

6-hour course

The course is open to individuals involved in the support, delivery, and/or receipt of respiratory care in outpatient, community care, and acute care settings. This includes family physicians and nurse practitioners, specialist physicians, respiratory therapists, nurses, pharmacists, IT staff, managers, QI staff, and patient-partners. Teams are encouraged to attend together, but this is not a requirement. 

Sustainable Kidney Care

4-hour course

There are many upstream and downstream interventions that can reduce the environmental impact of kidney care while maintaining or even improving quality of care. Over two highly interactive sessions developed in collaboration with the Canadian Society of Nephrology Sustainable Nephrology Action Planning (SNAP) Committee , participants in this workshop will gain and share knowledge, develop skills, and forge collaborations that will help them advocate for and participate in a bottom-up and top-down shift toward more environmentally sustainable kidney care (ESKC). Participants will hear from care providers and administrators on the front lines of sustainability efforts and will workshop sustainability project ideas for their own settings.

Mobilizing Quality Improvement for Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Critical Care

4-hour course

This workshop is designed for clinicians, administrators, quality improvement professionals, and others who use (or are interested in using) QI methods to drive improvements in critical care settings. Through theoretical frameworks and real-world examples from ICUs across Canada, the course explores the deep ties between sustainability and quality and equips participants with an understanding of how QI approaches and models can be used to deliver critical care that is not only more efficient and effective, but also more environmentally sustainable. 

 Leadership for Change: Toward Sustainable Health Systems

12+ hour course

Through pre-work, four interactive sessions, team and individual mentorship, and debriefing opportunities, this course explores the challenges, opportunities, and leadership capabilities required to improve, change, and transform the health sector for sustainability.

This course provides Canadian health leaders a new avenue to build knowledge, skills, and networks to help them promote and deliver sustainable health systems. It is grounded in the LEADS in a Caring Environment framework (Dickson & Tholl, 2014; 2020) and draws on various leadership and management theories, models, and methods to assess and strengthen relevant leadership capabilities. To support this, the course covers principles and practices in both leadership development and change leadership for sustainable healthcare. This course is most useful for participants who have specific challenges or initiatives they are working on in their healthcare setting.

Canadian College of Health Leaders Health Leadership Specialty: Sustainable Health Systems

The Canadian College of Health Leaders (CCHL) and CASCADES have partnered to offer health leaders in Canada a new avenue to leverage, build knowledge, skills and networks across Canada’s healthcare community to promote and deliver sustainable health systems. 

Health leaders can pursue Health Leadership Specialties (HLS) and earn credit towards the newly minted CCHL Fellowship Select Program.  

Through the HLS in Sustainable Health Systems, Canadian health leaders undertake the Fundamentals of Sustainable Health Systems course and one of the advanced courses. Participants apply their learning in their workplace and write a paper on the impact and experience of knowledge translation. The paper is reviewed by a panel of three CCHL Fellowship Evaluators, who may award the Health Leadership Specialty in Sustainable Health Systems. 

The Metrics for Change: Toward Sustainable Health Systems course is designed to provide members of the healthcare community with a better understanding of how we can mobilize metrics to assess and mitigate the environmental impacts of the health sector at the micro, meso, and macro levels. The technicalities, applications, limitations, and challenges of measurement methodologies such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and carbon footprinting are explored. Through a mix of lectures, readings, and individual and group exercises, attendees develop their environmental measurement literacy, learn to generate basic carbon footprints, and enhance their ability to tackle sustainability challenges in an informed and systematic way.  

Mobilizing Quality Improvement for Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Healthcare

4-hour workshop

This workshop is designed for clinicians, administrators, quality improvement professionals, and others who use (or are interested in using) QI methods to drive improvement in critical care settings. Through theoretical frameworks and real-world examples, the course explores the deep ties between sustainability and quality and equips participants with an understanding of how QI approaches and models can be used to deliver critical care that is not only more efficient and effective, but also more environmentally sustainable.

Using QI to build sustainable, low carbon, resilient and equitable healthcare: Collaboration with CQUIPS+

4-hour course

While our healthcare system aims to enhance health and wellness, it contributes to global climate change – the healthcare system is responsible for almost five per cent of Canada’s carbon footprint. There is a major opportunity for healthcare to implement sustainability interventions to protect, promote and prioritize health. In this masterclass, learners have the opportunity to understand how QI approaches and models can be used to enhance sustainability. Brought to life by real-world examples, this masterclass inspires learners to develop change ideas and use QI for the good of the planet.

Breakthrough Series Collaborative

6-hour course plus team check ins over 6+ months

Using QI methodology and the “Breakthrough Series Collaborative” (BSC) approach developed and tested by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, local sustainable healthcare innovations that have promising results in the testing phase are spread to multiple sites and regions across Canada for further validation.

Through guided learning activities, meetings with local sustainability leaders and nation-wide panel discussions, the Summer Institute on Sustainable Health Systems aims to develop trainee knowledge, leadership skills and capabilities, and build professional, interdisciplinary networks of trainees and professionals with shared interests.

The Summer Institute equips graduate trainees in health-related programs in Canada with knowledge and skills required to lead, manage, analyze, inform, or deliver sustainable health systems and fills the knowledge gap by increasing trainee awareness of sustainable health systems and current action in Canada.