Region Västra Götaland and West Sweden have organised a conference on 29 October 2009 in the Committee of Regions. The overall goal is to bring to the attention of  policy-makers the work implemented by authorities and stakeholders, not least at regional level, in order to develop strategic health care issues, policies and priorities and to establish a continuing dialogue and cooperation between the EU institutions and other European stakeholders within this area.
 
Substantial work regarding health care quality development including policies, measures and actions is widely performed and implemented at European regional level, and triple helix cooperation within this field offer great advantages. The conference will focus on these issues with keynote speeches as well as constructive workshops and discussions, offering possibilities to share experiences, debate interesting opportunities and build working alliances for the future.

AUDIENCE: European, national and regional stakeholders and decision-makers involved in health and health care policy, organization, financing, production, education, research and industry

http://www.vgregion.se/healthqbrussels

During the Open Days of the Committee of Regions, HOPE has held a workshop on hospitals and territories, changing landscape for European hospitals. Nowadays, most of the EU Member States very much rely on the regional and local levels for setting up health policies. A great number chose to decentralise by granting local governments extended responsibilities. Others preferred to devolve responsibilities to the State local administration. More seldom, a few countries decided to recentralise a number of responsibilities. All committed reforms on governing the hospital care are subject to debate, fuelled and stimulated by the very diverse experiences across the EU countries. During the workshop, hospital representatives from several EU countries will share views and experiences on how to reform the hospital care offer, taking into account the particularity of territories, their organization and competencies.

This year's conference will draw attention to the impact of the financial crisis and subsequent economic recession on health and health care. It will address challenges and opportunities for health systems, population health and the health of individuals and aims to develop appropriate policy responses to be considered at national and EU levels. In line with the call for leadership made at EHFG 2008, the global financial turmoil should not sway nations from existing commitments made to strengthen health systems. Sustained and strengthened investment in health care and public health can make a valuable contribution to economic recovery as well as health. However, leadership and vision are required to grasp these opportunities.

www.ehfg.org

In 2009, the HOPE Exchange Programme has been organised for the 28th time. The traditional HOPE Exchange Programme started on May 18 and ended on June 15, 2009. This 4 week training period is gathering managers and other professionals with managerial responsibilities from all over Europe.

The HOPE Exchange Programme 2009 has been closed by HOPE AGORA 2009 in Lisbon on 14 and 15 June 2009 on the issue of "Health Professionals in Europe: new roles, new skills".

More information on HOPE Exchange Programme

Hit Paris 2009, the European Congress on Health Information Technologies, took place on 26-28 May 2009 at Paris Expo – Porte de Versailles – Hall 7.3, as part of GERONT EXPO-HANDICAP EXPO 2009.

During three days, the Congress brought together 1400 health professionals involved in the modernisation of the health information system, and focused on four major areas:

• using information and communication technologies for better quality;
• using information and communication technologies to share information;
• information and communication technologies for better performance;
• information and communication used for care for the elderly and remote care and treatment.

www.health-it.fr

The 17th International Conference on Health Promoting Hospitals and Health Services took place on 6-8 May 2009 in Hersonissos, Crete with the title: “Hospitals and Health Services without Walls: New Services, New Partnerships, New Challenges for Health Promotion”.

Main topics:

• Health care without walls - a vision for health promotion in health care?
• Integrated health promoting health care for different target groups
• How to organise health promoting cooperation between different healthcare providers
• Political, legal and economic preconditions for health promoting health care without walls.

The first international congress on organisation of psychiatric care was organized in Prague from 20 to 22 April 2009, during the EU Czech Presidency and under the patronage of HOPE.

There is no place at European and international level for discussing the organization of mental health care, characterized by its diversity but usually unsatisfactory situations.

In the context of growing interest at WHO as well at EU level, the debates in Prague turn which is not surprising, around the interconnection  between outpatient, hospital and social care.

To do so the conference went through a wide range of topics: de-institutionalisation and re-institutionalisation; place of psychotherapy in the psychiatric care organization; residential addiction treatment; providing care to health care providers; protection of patients  in forensic psychiatry.

Targeting a participation of central and eastern European professionals, the conference was however international with speakers from USA, India Pakistan, Asia, Russia, along with local and European ones.

The success of this challenging event came from involvement of Dr. Ivan David, HOPE Liaison Officer, his team at the psychiatric hospital Bohnice.

HOPE and EHMA (European Health Management Association) organised a one-day Conference on “Hospital Financing: Diagnosis Related Groups – Leading the debate” with an unrestricted educational grant from Baxter. This event took place on 5th March 2009 in Brussels, welcomed by the Union Nationale des Mutualités Socialistes.

Read more and presentations

The 1st European symposium on "Quality Management and Accreditation in Laboratory Medicine" is organized in collaboration with the European society of laboratory medicine, Biorad laboratories and the French Hospital Federation, under the auspices of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine and HOPE. The symposium will be a forum to share expertise and ideas from high profile speakers from around the European Union. It will also be a platform to address future strategies to promote development and implementation of the accreditation standard EN 15 189 in the medical laboratories for all laboratory scientists, hospitals managers and stakeholders.