The IHR has been founded in Geneva in 2010 by doctors B.H. Walpoth, M. Meyer, and Mr. Ph. Baumann. In 2020 it was updated onto the REDCap database by doctors B.H. Walpoth, M. Meyer, E. Cools and D. Courvoisier and reviewed by the International Working Group on Accidental Hypothermia (IWAH).
Beat H. Walpoth, MD, is a Swiss Emeritus cardiovascular surgeon; medical degree from the University of Zurich (1972), postgraduate training at Harvard, (1973-75) and Stanford Universities (1982-84) and visiting professor at the University of Verona, Italy. He has over 150 publications including “Outcome of Survivors of Accidental Deep Hypothermia and Circulatory Arrest Treated with Extracorporeal Blood Warming” published in the New England Journal of Medicine (PDF) which is still the key paper for extracorporeal life support (ECLS), a technique pioneered by his mentor, Prof. Althaus, at the University Hospital, Bern. Founder and organizer of the International Symposia on Accidental Hypothermia, now renamed International Hypothermia Day (IHD) (PDF). At the University Hospital of Geneva he and his team developed the International Hypothermia Registry (IHR).
Marie Meyer, MD, obtained her medical degree in Geneva, Switzerland in 2008 before specializing in anesthesia. Her passion for the outdoors and mountain medicine led her to create the first version of the International Hypothermia Registry in 2010 with Dr. Beat Walpoth as her medical thesis. Over the years she has contributed to hypothermia awareness through workshops and publications. She worked as a senior registrar in anesthesia in the University Hospital of Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland.
Evelien Cools, MD, obtained her medical degree from the University of Leuven, Belgium, where she also received her specialization in anesthesiology and reanimation in 2016.From 2018 – 2024 she was working at the University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland.Dr. Cools is now senior staff physician at the Hospital Riviera-Chablais, Switzerland. Inspired by the mountains since childhood she became involved in mountain medicine in 2014, after obtaining the Diploma of Mountain and Expedition Medicine from the UIAA/ICAR/ISMM. She was an emergency helicopter physician at REGA, and now with AIR ZERMATT, Member of the Swiss Society of Mountain Medicine (SSMM), Intervention Group of Mountain Medicine (GRIMM) and the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC). Co-author of the ELSO Guidelines for Accidental Hypothermia.
Pr Delphine Courvoisier obtained a PhD in Psychometry at the University of Geneva and has a MSc in statistics (UNIGE) and a MSc in epidemiology (Harvard). After being a Lecturer in statistics at Harvard and a post-doctoral fellow at University of Rhode Island, she is now a professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Geneva. She is in charge of the electronic data capture platform for the Quality of Care unit. Her research interests are longitudinal data analysis, especially intensive longitudinal data, access to care, and real-world effectiveness estimation using registry data.
Working Group
The International Working group on Accidental Hypothermia (IWAH) consists of members from several countries. PDF
Each member is experienced and active in the field of hypothermia either through research, prehospital rescue or treatment of hypothermic patients.
Their role is to analyze the Registry’s data, publish new findings and new guidelines, coordinate hypothermia research between countries and act as mediators for hypothermia awareness to rescue and medical teams of their region/country.
