David Jackson

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Declaring climate change to be a public health hazard, the Obama administration issued suggestions Monday to help hospitals and other health care facilities cope with multiple threats of extreme weather.

Health care industry leaders are visiting the White House on Monday to endorse the new report — "Primary Protection: Enhancing Health Care Resilience for a Changing Climate" — and to pledge to follow the guidelines that are proposed.

The "guide and tool kit" is designed to help health care providers and others assure "the continuity of quality health and human care before, during and after extreme weather events," the report said.

The suggestions range from placing emergency rooms away from flood-prone areas to backup plans for the generation of electricity and water supplies. The report encourages all health care officials to work with local governments on road plans, to make sure that doctors, nurses and patients can get to health care facilities in an emergency.

The report also proposes building or rebuilding hospitals and other facilities so that they can withstand extreme weather events. It did not provide cost estimates for these kinds of projects.

The administration's National Climate Assessment, released in May, found that changes in climate are creating more extreme weather, including hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, heat waves, droughts and worsening air quality, the report said. That in turn is increasing risks to health.

The Department of Health and Human Services has declared climate change "one of the top public health challenges of our time."

Among the health care organizations to be represented at White House meetings Monday: The Cleveland Clinic, Inova Heath System, Kaiser Permanente, the American Hospital Association, and the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

These and other organizations "have committed to using the Administration's climate resilience guide to help them plan to withstand extreme weather events and other climate impacts," the White House said in a statement.

The White House pointed out that in 2005, hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed at least eight hospitals near the Gulf Coast. Two years ago, Superstorm Sandy did at least $800 million worth of damage to public hospitals in and around New York City.

Today, the report said, too many health care facilities are vulnerable to future extreme weather events.

"While the weather itself and its direct effect on the health care system are uncontrollable," the report says, "some elements of the system's vulnerability can readily be improved."