Editorial
The Recipe for Good Governance
In my role as a hospital manager I am still challenged to reach this goal everyday. Many years of experience in a leadership position do not guarantee the mastering of a perfect management style. One of the reasons for this is the need for continuous change. You have to adapt your leadership style and position as the values of staff members change constantly. Recent considerations have shown that achieveme...
Association News
41st Ordinary General Assembly
President of EAHM, Mr. Heinz Kölking welcomed members to the General Assembly and started by saying a few words about our dear colleague and long-standing EAHM member Asger Hansen who passed away in 2011. After a moment of silence the General Assembly got underway. Zurich 2010.This year’s agenda and the minutes from the 40th Ordinary General Assembly were unanimously approved. After this it was time f...
Conference News
First Joint European Hospital Conference
The morning section focused on current European health policy with a keynote presentation by Mars Di Bartolomeo, Minister of Health and Social Affairs, Luxembourg.The afternoon was devoted to the EU Directiveon Patients’ Rights and its impacton hospitals. The key presentation was given by Annika Nowak, European Commission and was followed by comments from various European countries (UK, Hungary, France,...
National News
The Belgian Association Takes a Study Trip to Boston
From the 19th to the 25th of September2011, the Belgian Association of Hospital Managers organised a study trip to Boston, the capital of New England. Around 40 hospital manager stook this great opportunity to visit arange of interesting hospitals. On the programme: Tufts Medical Centre, a world-class academic centre. This medical centre is the principal teaching hospital for Tufts University School of M...
Cover Story
Ethical Governance
Definition Ethical Governance refers to values and ethical behaviours, processes, procedures, culture, ways of doing and being that ensure high standards of performance, economy, effectiveness, efficiency, quality, satisfaction. Governance is the set of processes and abilities needed to achieve the objectives and fullfil the responsabilities of whatever business ororganisation, whether public, for profit...
How Ethical is Your Governance?
1. Leadership, Behaviour and Management Style Presence of a charismatic leadership, highly competent, able to suggest and share the vision of the organisation which means having the ability to answer or knowledge to answer the question: “for whom and for what do we exist”. Able to create a culture of excellence and honesty. Able to promote and encourage high ethical standards. 2. Communication Dissem...
Supporting Clinical Governance Development
As part of the communications strategy the need for succinct information on clinical governance was identified. This article provides an overview of the clinical governance development material prepared for this purpose. The objective was to inform the wider health community of the vision, benefits and guiding principles for clinical governance along with gaining momentum and support for implementation of...
Matrix
Fighting Infection With Eunetips
Last October in Venice, Italy, 16 European professional and scientific societies from 14 countries involved ininfection prevention and control formed EUNETIPS- a European network to promote infection prevention forpatient safety. The goal of EUNETIPS to promote better cooperation among nations, to share experiences,to promote and support initiatives in infection prevention for patient safety particularly a...
Management
Heinz Kölking
2011 Saw the Start of Your Mandate of President of EAHM. How was Your First Year in Charge and What did You Accomplish? As I have been active member of the association (Board and Executive Committee) for a long time now there is a certain continuity within the Presidency. The main activities of my Presidency focus on the implementation of the results of our reflection process; this is a perquisite for the...
Pharma Special
(E)Hospital Pharma Supplement
The rapid growth of pharmaceutical expenditure driven by changing demographics, strict clinical targets, rising patient expectations and the continued launch of new expensive drugs has become a contentious issue in the healthcare sector. New expensive drugs include new biological drugs marketed at considerably higher costs than previous standards, which now account for over 50% of in-patient drug costs amo...
Drug Delivery Systems
To acheive marketing approval, a molecule undergoes different development phases and a variety of studies need to be carried out. A new molecule typically involves preclinical testing in animals followed by clinical trials in humans, after which the application is submitted to regulatory agencies for review. In case of new delivery system, since drug molecule is already known, there is no need to...
Safe Handling of Hazardous Drugs
Author Jill Davis, Interview by Lee Campbell Firstly What are Cytotoxic Drugs and What do We Use Them For? Cytotoxic drugs are drugs that kill cells. They are mainly used to treat cancer but can be used for other therapeutic indications e.g. rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis. Cytotoxic drugs mainly kill cells through their action on cell reproduction, affecting cell DNA division. Th...
Top Tips for Hospital Managers
Small institutions should eliminate the risk by outsourcing the preparation of cytotoxic drugs. Otherwise, centralise the preparation of cytotoxic drugs under the control of the pharmacy department. Involve the appropriate people within the pharmacy department in all aspects of planning and design and operation of cancer chemotherapy services. Ensure risk is minimised by i) separating people from the drug...
Medtech
Individualised Patient Stratification Using Whole Genome Sequencing
IT @ Networking Awards 2012 - 2nd Place Introducing Innovation in Healthcare These advances in genomic medicine are only possible due to the equal progress in the information technology sector. The diagnostic opportunities also bring new challenges to medical centres regarding privacy in general and the necessary ICT infrastructure to secure this privacy at the individual patient level. Clinic...
The Winner of the IT@Networking Awards 2012
It is globally recognised that the only way to effectively support continuity of care is to implement an electronic health record (EHR) system on a large scale. The implementation of a national EHR is a high priority in the e-health strategies of most countries, regardless of whether they are first world or low- and middle-income countries. In South Africa, this has been successfully achieved in the Wes...
Eyesmart EMR
IT @ Networking Awards 2012 - 3rd Place The LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) was established in 1986-87 at Hyderabad as a not-for-profit, nongovernment, public-spirited, comprehensive eye care institution. From its very beginning, it set forth as its core values the “Three E’s”: Equity, Efficiency and Excellence. Equity translates as treating all patients (paying for services or not, rich or p...
Assessing the "Cost Versus Benefit" of Radiology
All licensed drugs have trial evidence that they work within their licensed indications, otherwise they would not have been granted a marketing authorisation by bodies such as the European Medicines Agency. Nevertheless they do not necessarily have to work particularly well or sufficiently well to justify their cost compared with other available treatments. As the provision of healthcare has be...
Interview
Healthcare in Norway
Challenges, Plans and Solutions Norway faces the same dilemma of many western European countries, as the standard of living improves and people’s life expectancy increases, there are new challenges with an ageing population and a growing number of people with chronic diseases. An ageing society will be a challenge for the Norwegian healthcare system. To make further progress in the health of th...