From 10 to 12 June 2013, HOPE held its Agora in The Hague, the Netherlands, concluding the 32nd HOPE Exchange Programme dedicated to the theme “Patient safety in practice. How to manage risks to patient safety and quality in European healthcare”. The HOPE Exchange Evaluation Conference of 12 June was preceded by a congress on this theme on 11 June, organised by the Dutch Hospitals Association (NVZ) and the Dutch Federation of University Medical Centres (NFU) in collaboration with HOPE, and attended by more than 350 participants.
The morning plenary provided an overview on cultural aspects that influence patient safety in hospitals and how managers can deal with this effectively. After an introduction and welcome by Ferry Breedveld (NFU), the session opened with a keynote speech from Leon van Halder (Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports) who highlighted several Dutch initiatives and policies to promote patient safety and cultural aspects that determined them. Niek Klazinga (Head of the Health Care Quality Indicators (HCQI) Project) illustrated the results of the EU-funded research project DUQuE, which assessed the relationship of various quality improvement governance approaches with quality indicators of hospital care. Wim van Harten (NKI-NVL) presented VMS, the Dutch programme for safety management in healthcare and Erik Heineman (Groningen University) focused on the viewpoint of the medical specialist, highlighting cultural differences influencing their work in hospitals. Finally, Diana Delnoij (Tilburg University) talked about patient participation in safety management, providing an insight into patients’ experiences and explaining how patients can be involved so to enable their active participation to their safety. Concluding this session, Yvonne van Rooy (NVZ) further stressed that improving patient safety represents today an important priority. Stimulate mutual learning and exchange of experiences is fundamental since safety is the result of the close cooperation among many different professionals.
In the afternoon, several workshops were organised allowing attendants to share their views and experiences in a more interactive way. During the workshops, experts presented good practices from different European countries on seven themes (medication safety, reporting incidents, communication gaps, patient participation, infection prevention, safety in the operating theatre and working in teams).
The conference ended with an interview of HOPE Chief Executive Pascal Garel and Jean Bacou (HAS, coordinator of PaSQ Joint Action) who highlighted the close connection existing between HOPE Exchange Programme and PaSQ Joint Action, both aiming at promoting and enabling knowledge and good practices exchange. It was also stressed how flexibility and a bottom up approach are the way forward in order to take into account the different national contexts and realities existing in Europe.
Download here the HOPE report on “Patient safety in practice. How to manage risks to patient safety and quality in European healthcare”.
Individual presentations of the participating countries on the HOPE Exchange Programme (in alphabetical order):
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Latvia
Lithuania
Malta
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
