Dr. Robert Brewer Featured in Inside Climate News

Robert Brewer, MD, associate director of emergency medicine at St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany, was featured in Inside Climate News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit publication dedicated to climate reporting.

Dr. Brewer spoke to the publication about the impact of heat waves on emergency departments. It follows a study by Truveta, Harvard, and Boston University that used real-time EHR data to measure the health impacts of extreme heat on the medical system. The research focused on two severe heat events across 19 states in 2025. It found that 1 in 10 emergency room visits were entirely attributable to the extreme heat, something Dr. Brewer said is not surprising, especially in northern states where people aren’t accustomed to dealing with such high temperatures.

From the article:

The volume of patients in Dr. Robert Brewer’s upstate New York emergency room isn’t always predictable, but when there’s a heat wave, he knows he needs to staff up. 

Heat waves mean more dehydration and kidney problems. As patients’ bodies struggle to regulate temperature, dilating blood vessels strain their hearts, sometimes leading to heart failure. Brewer sees more frustration, outbursts and patients less able to manage mental health conditions. Last summer, when the Northeast was hit with uncharacteristically severe heat waves as climate change continues to worsen, all that was especially true. 

“It definitely strains hospital resources,” said Brewer, the associate director of emergency medicine at St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany. “We definitely feel it in the emergency department, and the hospital feels it, hospital-wide.”

…

“Last summer in Albany, Brewer saw patients who simply weren’t expecting or prepared for the weather. In some cases, elderly patients and those with chronic illnesses faced medical emergencies because they didn’t have interventions like air conditioning. Earlier this summer, he saw an elderly patient come in with rhabdomyolysis: a life-threatening condition in which muscle tissue breaks down, gets into the bloodstream and can cause serious kidney damage. It’s not uncommon in the heat, he said.

Getting information closer to real time is useful for hospitals like his, Brewer added. 

“If we know that we’re going to have a heat wave, and we know the volume is going to increase by an average of about 10 percent, then we can staff appropriately,” he said.

Trinity Health is a member of Truveta and contributes de-identified EHR data from its facilities, including St. Peter’s, to advance medical research. Truveta data is used by organizations including the CDC, Pfizer, Boston Scientific, Boehringer Ingelheim, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan to support research and public health initiatives. 

To read the full article: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04092026/tracking-heat-in-real-time-could-help-doctors/