Five Irish health managers participated in a four week HOPE training programme in five European countries in May.
Back Row, Joseph Ruane, Head of Primary Care, Midlands Louth Meath, Mary Shore The Hermitage Medical Centre Sean Ritschard, Nurse Manager, Switzerland, Dr Grzegortz Piotrowski, Poland and Siobhan Regan, HOPE National Co-Orordinator.
They were Christy Carolan, Head of Engineering/Facilities Manager at the Hermitage Medical Clinic, Dublin, who visited Austria, Joanne Dowds, Physiotherapy Manager, St. James’s Hospital, Dublin who visited Denmark, Mary Quinn, Human Resource Manager, HSE Mullingar, who visited Finland, Cathy Phelan, Senior Occupational Therapist, Mater Hospital, Dublin, who visited France and Jackie Barron, Disability Manager, Dundalk who visited Sweden.
In return five health managers from Europe visited hospitals and community health services in Ireland, as part of their training programme and participate on a CPD Leadership Programme facilitated by the RCSI Institute of Leadership, Dublin.
They are:
- Anne Kanto-Ronkanen, Rehabilitation Coordinator, Kuopio University Hospital, Finland
- Grzegorz Piotrowski, Medical Doctor, Multi Disciplinary Centre of Oncology and Traumatology, Lodz, Poland.
- Gunilla Nordström, Director Patients Advisory Board, Region Gävleborg, Gävle, Sweden.
- Jasmin Hribar, Healthcare Manager, Klinikum Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Feschniqstr, Austria.
- Sean Ritschard, Nurse Manager, Spital Aarberg, Lyssstrasse, Aarberg, Switzerland.
HOPE, the European Hospital and Healthcare Federation, is a European non-profit organisation, created in 1966 representing national public and private hospital associations and hospital owners.
Its membership covers 37 organisations in the 28 Member States of the European Union and in Switzerland and the Republic of Serbia.
The HOPE mission is to promote improvements in the health of citizens and a uniformly high standard of hospital care by the European Union, fostering efficiency, effectiveness and humanity in the organisation and operations of hospital and health services.
One of the basic objectives of HOPE is to promote exchange of knowledge and expertise within the European Union and to provide training and experience for hospital and healthcare professionals in this European context.
Since 1981, the European Hospital and Healthcare Federation is running the HOPE Exchange Programme. It consists of a four-week training programme for professionals with managerial responsibilities working in hospitals and healthcare facilities.This Exchange Programme aims to lead to better understanding of the functioning of healthcare and hospital systems within the EU and neighbour countries, by facilitating co-operation and exchange of best practices.
The HOPE Exchange Programme is not a medical or technical programme. It is a multi professional programme. It is aimed at professions and professionals who are directly or indirectly involved in the management of European health care services and hospitals. They must be working in hospitals / healthcare facilities, adequately experienced in their profession with a minimum of three years of experience and having proficiency in the language that is accepted by the host country.
The emphasis of the programme is practical rather than academic and also takes into account the professional’s specific motivation for joining the programme as well as the agreed theme for the year. The theme for the HOPE Exchange Programme 2018 is “Improving the quality of healthcare using the experiences and competencies of patients: Are we ready?”
The length of the exchange period has been followed, since 1988, by an evaluation meeting and since 1992 also by a seminar in June, to which all professionals of the HOPE Exchange Programme are invited.
Each year these meetings are organised in a different country by its national delegation of HOPE. Last year this was held in Ireland and this year it was held in Stockholm, Sweden. During the evaluation meeting each professional contributes to a national presentation of his/her experiences abroad.
