Insight Report: The Compelling Case for Better Screening and Secondary Prevention in Europe: Lessons From Five Representative Diseases
Brussels, 17 September 2021 – Health First Europe is delighted to announce the launch of its newest report: “The Compelling Case for Better Screening and Secondary Prevention in Europe: Lessons from Five Representative Diseases”.
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the value of screening and secondary prevention in general for improving patient safety, the quality of care in healthcare settings and quality of life across Europe. Regular exams and screening tests can detect disease in its earliest stages, dramatically increasing the likelihood of preventing the worst impacts of diseases and restoring patients’ health and well-being to their previous state. Increased screening and secondary prevention can also substantially reduce the cost of public health services over the long term.
Europe has many national success stories that could be better shared and implemented across borders. This Insight Report showcases concrete examples and solutions for implementing national screening programmes which have been successful in improving outcomes for patients and society in five representative disease areas: breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, healthcare-associated infections, heart failure, and new-born and severe combined immune deficiency (SCID).
For more information, please contact secretariat@healthfirsteurope.org
EU Health Policy Platform
HFE & EHMA JOINT STATEMENT
Profiling and Training the Healthcare Workforce of the Future
Health First Europe and the European Health Management Association (EHMA), in the scope of the EUHPP Thematic Network, are pleased to present their new Joint Statement on “Profiling and Training the Healthcare Workforce of the Future”.
This Joint Statement provides insights into best practices in the health workforce education to be shared across borders and provides a set of concluding recommendations to inform and advise the European Commission and the EU Members States on health care workforce education, training, and planning for the future of care, identifying the necessary skill mix and the areas in which greater EU collaboration and best practice sharing are needed.
We call for your support and endorsement of our Joint Statement!
Please endorse the Joint Statement by filling in the form here. The deadline to respond is Friday, 12 February 2021.
EHMA and Health First Europe sincerely thank all stakeholders for previous contributions occurred at the Thematic Network webinars last year, in the Thematic Network meetings, and by filling in the survey and reviewing the final document. Your feedback and participation were essential in shaping the EUHPP Thematic Network’s Final Statement.
If you like to disseminate our Joint Statement further, please feel free to share it within your network via social media platforms or sharing our posts about the Joint Statement using the hashtag #EUWorkforce4care.
If you have any questions, please contact secretariat@healthfirsteurope.org or policy@ehma.org
The HFE annual report is a comprehensive review of HFE activities throughout the preceding year. It intends to give an overview of our campaigns, networks, events, and publications. You may find it attached below. Enjoy the reading!
Our Joint Call on Patient Safety and HAI Prevention and Control is out!
A Healthcare-Associated Infection (HAI) is an infection occurring in a patient during the process of care in a hospital or in another healthcare facility which was not present or incubating at the time of admission. HAIs can affect patients in any type of health care setting in both hospital and long-term care facilities while receiving care, and can also appear after discharge, thus increasing the risk of spreading the infection within the community.
Following the Council Conclusions on the next steps towards making the EU a best practice region in combatting antimicrobial resistance and the resulting engagement of the EU institutions and Member States, we call on the European Commission to adopt a broad and coherent pan-European Infection Management Strategy addressing the health, social, economic and environment determinants, which influences infection diseases and considers the intrinsic links between antimicrobial resistance, prevention of HAIs and sepsis.
#STOPSEPSISEU: Joint Letter to MEPs
The third roundtable debate of the European Network for Safer Healthcare jointly with Health First Europe, received very positive feedback which lead to the publication of a letter co-signed by relevant Health European Associations addressed to all the 751 Members of the European Parliament in order to raise awareness on sepsis prevention and control in Europe.
The following organisations signed the letter:
HFE members’ reflections on digital health
HFE has released its paper on digital health, collecting members’ reflections on digitalisation of care, the opportunities existing technologies can offer and the barriers to overcome for their implementation. Specifically, the document reflects the vision of HFE members:
- Main priority areas for EU actions on digital health
- Existing digital solutions & data sharing practices to be implemented across Europe
- Benefits of digital health & health data sharing
- Barriers for the uptake of digital solutions
- Our recommendations to national and EU policymakers
The paper has been released together with the video campaign #Digital4Care – you might find here the video interviews with our members.
Please, download the paper below and enjoy the read!
Healthcare is highly labour intensive and one of the largest economic sectors in the EU – accounting for around 17 million jobs (8% of all jobs). Population growth, ageing societies, and changing disease patterns are expected to drive greater demand for well-trained health workers in the next 15 years. However, according to the WHO, today health workforce imbalances and shortages are major concerns in Europe. Although the number of physicians and nurses has increased in the region by approximately 10% over the past 10 years. It is unlikely that this increase will be stable and sufficient to cover the future needs of the sector.
In this vein, the European health system requires a deep reconstruction to ensure its sustainability: ageing society, the rise of chronic diseases, increased demand for primary care and personalised lifelong care are causing economic stress on health systems and their workforce.
Link to download the Discussion Paper below.
The White Paper on rapid diagnostic technologies to tackle AMR aims to be an informative tool for policy makers and healthcare stakeholders to understand and raise awareness on the potential of rapid diagnostic innovations to support the global fight against antimicrobial resistance. Innovative, well-designed and well-adapted to patients’ needs, rapid diagnostic tools can limit unnecessary use of antimicrobials by eliminating inappropriate prescriptions, tailoring treatment for bacterial infections, preventing the reproduction of infections and curbing the spread of infectious outbreaks.
Link to download the report below:
Health First Europe released four thematic models to address some key challenges in community care: Roadmap on Wound Care – Roadmap on Ostomy Care – Roadmap on Dialysis Care – Roadmap on Continence Care in Europe.
Link to download the models below.
The Health First Europe Model for Community Care is a roadmap of the substantive changes required to release the value and power of the new care model. This roadmap focuses on six areas of needed reform, including Quality Care and Standards, Innovation and value. as well as Access and Reimbursement.
Link to download the document below.
