Extreme heat is emerging as one of the most immediate climate risks facing health care, particularly in long-term care where residents are often unable to independently regulate their environments. At Youville Residence, Providence Health Care (Providence) is advancing a comprehensive response that connects research, infrastructure planning and lived experience of seniors in long term care as well as in the geriatric-psychiatric acute care.
Integrating national research with facility action
A cornerstone of this work is Providence’s participation in Indoor Heat Health Impacts project, a national initiative funded by Health Canada and led by the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care. The project examines how extreme heat affects older adults in care and identifies practical, low-cost strategies to reduce risk.
At Youville, the research combines environmental monitoring with interviews and surveys involving residents, staff, and care partners. Indoor temperature and humidity tracking help quantify overheating, while frontline perspectives reveal how care practices shift during heat events.
To deepen this understanding, Providence partnered with a UBC Sustainability Scholar, whose fieldwork explored residents’ lived experience, adaptive behaviours, and care challenges during extreme heat, captured in the Protecting Older Adults During Extreme Heat report.
As Raluca Radu, Planetary health lead at Providence and principal investigator for this project in BC, highlights, “Together, the insight from these two projects position heat not only as a facilities issue, but as a clinical patient safety and quality-of-care priority. They offer us a clearer picture of how residents, staff, medical staff, and buildings experience extreme heat, helping us design responses that are both meaningful and grounded in the operational realities of long‑term care.”
Pairing lived experience with infrastructure insight
Complementing the Indoor Heat Health Impacts project, Providence completed a Climate Vulnerability Survey (CVS) at Youville to assess building-level concerns. The survey explored cooling systems, ventilation, emergency power, and operational protocols, creating a systems view of how the building’s infrastructure performs during extreme weather. By aligning clinical insight with facilities data, Providence is developing adaptation strategies that address both immediate and long-term needs, from care procedures to capital upgrades.
By aligning the Heat Health project insights with facilities planning through the CVS, we’re laying the groundwork for adaptation measures that are practical, evidence-based, and scalable,” says Craig Dedels, regional manager climate risk and resilience with the Energy & Environmental Sustainability team.
As extreme heat events intensify, the Youville work offers a replicable model: one where resident dignity, staff readiness and thermal comfort, and building performance are addressed together.
In doing so, PHC is not only strengthening resilience within a single long-term care home, it is also contributing to national learning on how health-care systems can adapt to a rapidly changing climate while maintaining safe, compassionate care.
