To achieve operational excellence in clinical care, strong emergency preparedness plans and a high degree of health service resilience is essential. This is particularly the case in the context of growing uncertainties and the need to mitigate risk.

How can the GSC’s Sustainability Accelerator Tool (SAT) support resilience?

SAT directly supports health service resilience by offering a structured approach for hospitals to strengthen their ability to anticipate, withstand, and adapt to disruptions. Specifically, SAT supports organizations in the following ways.

Comprehensive assessment

The SAT enables hospitals to assess their sustainability maturity levels and guides hospitals towards areas to improve including assessing community vulnerabilities, and infrastructure and care delivery resilience, amongst others. This supports the capacity of hospitals to be more resilient to events such as floods, wildfires, or power outages, helping them stay operational during disruptions.

Tailored strategy support

The SAT helps healthcare leaders to develop a comprehensive sustainability strategy, offering insights into current strengths and performance gaps, and suggesting custom recommendations based on the organization’s level of sustainability maturity.

Tracking progress and communicating outcomes

The SAT dashboards allow organizations to monitor key sustainability indicators, making it easier to communicate progress to stakeholders such as boards, the hospital workforce, and community members, enhancing transparency and engagement.

Emergency preparedness and service continuity

The SAT evaluates emergency preparedness, especially regarding climate-induced events, ensuring hospitals can adapt their services and infrastructure to remain operational and protect vulnerable populations.

Educational resource and team capacity strengthening

The SAT, complemented by the GSC learning programme, serves as a training and awareness-building tool for the healthcare workforce, enhancing knowledge of the link between sustainability, health outcomes, and operational efficiency. It encourages collaborative planning and shared accountability across departments, which is vital to increase service resilience.

Operational excellence in clinical care increasingly depends on a healthcare organization’s ability to maintain services in the face of unexpected shocks, whether environmental, epidemiological, or systemic. Health service resilience is a strategic priority for healthcare providers and the GSC’s SAT empowers hospitals to prepare for uncertainty through enhanced resilience, while embedding sustainability into clinical and operational decision-making.