An important part of the HOPE Exchange Programme is to
facilitate the exchange of knowledge and expertise between healthcare
professionals in a European context. In pursuance of this the HOPE Exchange
Programme terminates with the HOPE Agora. This closing conference is considered
an integral part of the HOPE Exchange Programme giving the participants the
possibility to show and to discuss their observations and conclusions.
Every year, as a part of the HOPE Agora, the participants of
the HOPE Exchange programme as a group give a presentation of their experiences
in the host country on a specific theme identifying up to three good practices.
The theme for HOPE Agora 2022 is “Using Evidence in Healthcare Management”. It
directly follows and builds on the previous HOPE Agora 2019 which topic was
“Evidence-Informed Decision-making in Healthcare Management” but it wishes to
integrate the context of crisis management that health care systems have been
facing with the Sars-cov2 pandemic.
Since the establishment of the term “evidence-based
medicine” in the 1980s, the call for a more systematic use of evidence has
spread to other areas, such as health policymaking and management. This
approach means that policy-making and managerial decisions should be based on
best available knowledge and not on beliefs and long-established practices.
For the purposes of the HOPE Agora 2022, the broadest
possible understanding of the term “evidence” will be used. Such an
understanding includes findings from scientific publications, ranging from
randomized control trials to case reports. It also includes local evidence,
which is the contextual information necessary to take a decision. Examples of
such contextual information are analysis of locally available data, gathering
information from stakeholders and considering the cultural, political,
administrative and other settings which may influence a decision.
The use of evidence in management should not be perceived as
a rigid, one-size-fits-all solution, but rather a way of thinking about how to
make decisions at three levels: national/regional; top management level of
hospital and healthcare services; unit/department level.
Examples at national/regional level are: shifting tasks from
physicians to nurses and other healthcare professionals; the processes used in
health technology assessment.
Examples of top management decisions could be in: investment
choices in new equipment, such as robots for assisted surgery or PET scanners;
organizational practices such as using performance measures to foster
improvements in quality of care.
Many more examples also on unit/department level are
available in the report of the HOPE Agora 2019
(http://www.hope.be/hope_agora_2019/).
In order to identify the up-to-three good practices, the
participants are invited to check from where evidence is coming, within which
process they are used and with which results. Those good practices may not
necessarily be covering Covid-19 issues.
The following questions should help HOPE Exchange
participants to cover those three steps.
Sources of evidence
What is the experience of organizations in making use of
scientific literature as the bases for healthcare management? How was the
literature reviewed and by whom?
Is it an established activity within the healthcare
organization? How did the idea arise?
Does the healthcare organization make regular use of local
data sources for decision-making? Which ones are used?
Are population data used regularly by the organization to
support decision-making? Are electronic health-records regularly used for
decision-making?
Are patients regularly involved in decisions regarding the
administration of a hospital? Is the local community or are local authorities
consulted before decisions are taken?
How data analysis is performed
Is there a system to perform regular analysis of data based
on the various possible data sources?
Do organizations have experiences in participating in
research on healthcare management? Were the research findings of such
collaborations useful to the participating organization?
Is there an established process to regularly pilot
organizational innovations?
Do healthcare organizations have experiences in conducting
expert workshops to aid managerial decision-making?
Are qualitative analysis performed to aid decision-making?
Outputs of the use of evidence in healthcare management
What do organizational performance assessment look like? By
whom are they used and how? Do these assessments have any impact?
Are change management processes explicitly planned and
employed? Do these processes draw from the body of knowledge about change
management?
Is strategic planning of organizations informed by evidence?
PRESENTATIONS
Participants in the HOPE exchange programme are asked to give three good practices examples of the use of evidence in healthcare management, based on what they have encountered during their stay in their host country,
In most receiving countries, there will be participants of
different nationalities and professional backgrounds. The process of
identifying and reaching consensus on practical examples will then be an
important, if not the most important, element. The process of producing the end
result is at least as important as the content of the PowerPoint presentation.
The PowerPoint presentation for each country should focus on
practical examples, stimulating factors/initiatives and barriers that the
participants have come across at national, regional, healthcare and/or ward
levels. The participants are asked not to include a description of the health
care system of the country in which they have stayed.
One of the major objectives of the exchange is to identify
elements in the healthcare system they visited that the HOPE participants find
inspiring or worth considering when looking at the challenges that they face at
home in their own country. Participants are not asked to assess the health
system in the country in which they have stayed. Rather, they are invited to
reflect on what they would like to see implemented in their own country,
region, institution or ward, or what they could learn from their host country.
The task is oriented, as all the exchange is, on what to bring back home.
Working process
Step 1
Participants will individually identify examples.
Step 2
They will exchange what they have found with other
participants staying in the same country. If they do not meet before the end of
the programme, national coordinators will organise this exchange by internet.
Step 3
Participants will have to choose together up to three
practical examples.
Step 4
Participants will prepare a PowerPoint presentation of up to
three practical examples. The participants are also invited to explain the
reasons behind their choice.
Presentations
• The
presentations at the final conference are supposed to be 12 minutes long, and
should be delivered to the organisers at the latest 14.00 on Friday 3 June
2022. The presentation should not go below the time limit, nor exceed it.
• Presentations
should be made in PowerPoint ONLY. Any sound effects and movies should be
incorporated in the PowerPoint file.
• Diagrams
and graphics are welcomed where appropriate or necessary to explain an idea or
to visualise a process.
Copyright
Presentations must stand-alone (as a pdf-file) as they will
be used for publishing on the website. This must be considered when using
special effects or in respect to copyright restrictions.
• Preferably,
use only your own photographs as illustrations within the presentation.
• It is
strongly recommended to only download images from websites that offer images
free of royalties for commercial use (e.g. www.pixabay.com).
• The
absence of a copyright notice does not mean that an image or illustration may
be freely used. If in doubt, assume you cannot use it.
• In case
copyright images are being used within the presentation, proof of purchase
stating the intended use of those images must be provided to HOPE.
• The names
of all participants in a country should be mentioned on the presentation. They
will be held personally responsible in case of copyright infringements.
