Monthly Archives: October, 2016

HMI President, Lucy Nugent opened the 6th Annual HMI Conference by welcoming HMI Members, guests, speakers and delegates. Maureen Browne presents a report of the 2016 HMI Annual Conference.

It was a reality, but not necessarily a bad one, that politicians and managers sometimes took different views on how something might be done and the time and resources required to do it, Minister of State, Helen McEntee T.D., said when she opened the HMI 6th Annual Conference in the RDS.

Ireland was not doing too badly in spending on healthcare – it was now in the eighth position in the OECD, behind the US, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany and France. Dr. Brian Turner, Lecturer in Economics, University College, Cork, told the Conference.

Germany’s health service challenges centred not on a shortage of services but rather an over-supply of services, Dr. Josef Dullings President of the German Association of Hospital Managers (VKD) and CEO, Hospitals of Saint Vincenz, Paderborn, Germany told the Conference.

Healthcare professionals need professionalisation and the International Hospital Federation is creating a web based platform which will allow healthcare professionals to assess themselves, Eric de Roodenbeke, Director General of the IHF told the Conference.

If you looked at national initiatives in the NHS in England over recent years you would see a big imbalance in strategy towards control and away from improvement and planning, Dr. Jennifer Dixon, Chief Executive, Health Foundation UK, told the Conference.

The management of the health services was a constant series of choices, whether in the allocation of funds for the purchase of an innovative medicine or the provision of extra home care packages, there was only a finite resource that was far outweighed by demand, Mr. Liam Cullen, Director of External Affairs and Public Policy, GSK told the Conference.

Moving to 100% electronic general referral will result in a saving of €2.6 million a year, Richard Corbridge, Chief Information Officer HSE and Chief Executive Officer eHealth Ireland and Ms. Gemma Garvan - HSE told the Conference.

There were wonderful innovative health projects being pioneered all over the country and health care managers should encourage their colleagues and staff to enter these for the annual HMI Leaders Awards, Denis Doherty HMI Council Member and Chair of the HMI Leaders Award 2016 National Adjudication Panel, told the Conference.

Drawing on her own experience as a patient and advocate, author and writer, Lia Mills provided the Conference with a personal perspective on the importance of the values of compassion and respect for patients.

Healthcare managers’ lives involved a stressful balancing act, recognising the workload and stress on their staff on the one hand and trying to balance that with the amount of support and control they could put in place on the other, Professor Jim Lucey, Medical Director at St. Patrick’s Mental Health Services and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at TCD, told the Conference.

Women’s entry into leadership was impeded by gendered division of labour, gender bias/misrecognition, management and masculinity and greedy organisations, Prof. Anne Scott, Professor and Vice President for Equality and Diversity, National University of Ireland, Galway, told the Conference.

Research showed that during 2009 one in eight patients in Irish hospitals experienced adverse events at an estimated annual cost of €194 million (excluding legal costs), which was 4% of healthcare budget. Prof. Oscar Traynor, Director, National Surgical Training Centre and Professor of Postgraduate Surgical Education at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, told the Conference.